How to Choose a Background for Your Team Headshots

There is one decision we need from you before we load the van, and it changes how every photo looks more than any other choice we make. Not the lighting, not the lens. The background. Here are the four ways we do it, what each one says about your company, and how to land on one without a committee.

Option one: inside your office

We shoot in your actual space and open the lens up so the room falls away behind the person. Desks, glass walls, plants, and whatever your brand colors happen to be all soften into tone and shape. You can tell it is an office. You cannot tell which desk, and nobody is reading the whiteboard.

Why teams choose it

It looks like you work somewhere real without giving anyone a tour of the floorplan. Recruiting and careers pages tend to do better with this than with a backdrop, because the photo carries a little information about the place alongside the person.

What to know

It needs a few feet of depth behind the person, which is what lets the room dissolve. The background also shifts as we move around the floor, so we pick one or two spots when we arrive and run everyone through the same place. That keeps the set looking like a set.

Option two: out the window

A surprising number of Boston offices have a view that nobody ever uses. The Seaport, the Financial District, Kendall Square, the water. We put the person near the glass, expose for their face, and let the city behind them go soft, so it reads as blocks of light and the shape of a skyline rather than a postcard of a building.

Why teams choose it

It is the one background nobody can copy, because it is your floor and your city. It also does something a backdrop cannot: it puts the person somewhere specific without making the photo about the room.

Option three: a solid backdrop we bring

We arrive with a seamless backdrop and set it up in a conference room or any corner with about eight feet of space. Everyone stands in the same spot, under the same light, against the same tone.

You pick the tone:

Light gray

The safest choice, and the one we recommend most often. It is bright and open, it sits cleanly on a white website, and it flatters just about everyone regardless of what they wore.

Medium gray

A little more weight without going moody. It is the quiet workhorse of the four, because it holds up against both light and dark clothing instead of favoring one.

Dark gray

This is where a portrait starts to feel deliberate. Faces separate from the background, light clothing reads crisp, and the whole set gets a little more serious.

Black

The most dramatic of the four, and the one that needs the most thought. It gives a portrait real gravity, and it can be stunning. It also swallows dark clothing, which is sometimes exactly the effect you want and sometimes a problem worth knowing about in advance. Worth pairing with our guide on what to wear if you go this way.

Why teams choose it

Consistency that survives turnover. Someone who joins in March can be photographed in November against the same backdrop and drop straight onto the team page without looking like they were added later. If you have offices in more than one city, this is the only option that makes them all look like one company.

Option four: a color, ordered for you

Gray and black are not the only seamless we can bring. A dusty rose, a warm taupe, a deep slate blue, a soft blush, your exact brand color: we can order it or build it, and then it is the same for everyone who steps in front of it.

Tell us the color ahead of time

This is the one option with a lead time. Seamless paper and painted backdrops have to be sourced, and a custom color has to be mixed, so we need to know well before the shoot rather than on the morning of. Send us a hex code, a brand guide, or just a photo of something the right shade and we will work from that.

Why teams choose it

It photographs as a choice rather than a default. A color says something about the company before anyone has read a word of the bio, and it makes a set of headshots instantly recognizable as yours when they show up in a feed or a press kit.

What to know

Soft, muted colors are the safest. They flatter skin tones and stay readable behind almost any outfit. Highly saturated colors are wonderful on the right person and unforgiving on the wrong one, so if you are going bold it is worth pairing the decision with our guide on what to wear and giving your team some direction.

Four things worth knowing before you pick

We keep your setup on file

Once we have shot your team, we record the background and the exact lighting setup we used, and we keep it. When you hire three people next spring, we come back and photograph them into the same look. Their photos drop onto your team page beside everyone else's and nothing looks patched together, which is usually where company websites start to fall apart.

Your headshot will outlive the shoot

Whatever we pick becomes the look of your team page for the next few years, and it sets the bar for everyone hired after you. That is the real reason this decision is worth five minutes now rather than five minutes on the morning of.

You do not have to choose only one

Plenty of teams do a backdrop for the official headshot and then a second, looser frame against the office or the window. It costs a little more time per person, maybe two extra minutes, and it gives your marketing team something to work with beyond one square crop.

You will see it before we commit

We tether to a monitor, so the first person up doubles as the test. If the backdrop is reading too dark against your brand colors, or the view is blown out, we know within two minutes and we change it.

A quick way to decide

Recruiting pages, careers sites, and culture-forward companies

Use the office. A softened room tells a candidate something about where they would be working, which a seamless backdrop cannot do.

You are on a high floor with a real view

Use the windows, at least for a second frame. It is the one background nobody else can copy, because it is your floor and your city.

Law, finance, healthcare, or anything where the headshot sits next to a bio

Go with a solid backdrop. Consistency is the whole point, and a clean tone keeps attention on the face. Light or medium gray is the safest pick.

You have offices in more than one city

A solid backdrop, without question. It is the only option that makes Boston and Chicago and Austin look like one company.

What we need on the day

What we need for a backdrop

A room roughly ten by twelve feet with an outlet, ideally a conference room you can spare for the day. We need about eight feet of clear space and we bring everything else, including the stands, the lights, and the backdrop itself. Setup takes 45 minutes.

What we need for office or window frames

A few feet of depth behind the person, which is what lets the room fall away. We will walk the floor when we arrive, pick one or two spots, and shoot everyone in the same place so the set stays consistent.

How long each person takes

Five to six minutes once we are running, so a schedule with people every ten minutes gives everyone breathing room and keeps the day moving.

You see your photo before you leave the room

We shoot tethered to a monitor, live. Everyone watches their own frames come up, picks the one they want on the spot, and walks out knowing what they are getting. Professional retouching on the selected photo is included.

What we need from you beforehand

A rough headcount, a schedule we can slot people into, and this decision. If you are choosing a color, we need that early enough to order or build it. If you are torn, tell us what the photos are for and we will tell you what we would do.

Still torn?

Send us a couple of photos of your space, taken on your phone, nothing fancy. A conference room and a window is plenty. We will tell you what we would do with it and why, and if the answer is a backdrop we will say so rather than talking you into something more complicated.