The Art of Boston Executive Headshots
Every city has a personality, a culture, something it’s known for – and often it’s reflected in the people, how they dress, talk, the social and business norms, etc. I’ve worked with people in many cities around the world, and have lived in New York, Florida, Texas, and Massachusetts – and can reliably attest that they are all very different.
I love Boston – it has a rich and vibrant culture (and great sports teams), and active business community. It is liberal in many ways, yet in others one could call it conservative. There are businesses that have been around for over 100 years, along with a very active start-up community, particularly in the biotechnology area.
What’s Different about Executive Headshots in Boston
This business dichotomy also manifests itself in photography, and in particular headshots for Boston-area businesses. Our business clients include a wide variety of companies, from startups and established biotechnology companies, to legal/financial services, software and services, and capital equipment manufacturing firms and more. Some are headquartered in Boston; others are divisions of larger companies based elsewhere. And while some do most of their business in the Boston area, the majority have clients around the world.
In virtually all cases, they have developed a brand/identity and have a good understanding of their target markets, audience, the messaging and image brand they want to convey about themselves, whether it be to potential clients, partners, or job seekers. Being in Boston, that brand is influenced somewhat by the Boston culture – somewhat conservative yet liberal at the same time, educated, not known to take extreme positions, relatively stable. You find people in business well-dressed but not overly so, many companies embracing the business casual style.
Executives Seek Clean, Confident and Approachable Headshots
The headshot photography for these Boston area businesses also reflects that culture – most clients want a fresh, welcoming yet professional look that shows confidence with approachability. Arguably, this is somewhat as a result of the demographics of the businesses here versus a city such as Los Angeles. Of course, the individual brand of the business will dictate the specifics, but these clients generally want to convey a level of professionalism, competence, with attention to detail and quality.
Case Study – Profitero’s Boston Team Headshots
Case in point, earlier this year I had the privilege to work with Profitero to create headshots for their Boston team. Profitero, with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, is an e-commerce performance analytics platform with customers such as Adidas, Bayer, General Mills, and others. Their brand promotes their values of passion and commitment to helping customers, combining their deep expertise with the creativity to create solutions for their clients. They wanted their headshots to reflect their brand, supporting their efforts to obtain new clients as well as to attract new employees.
We met at Profitero’s downtown Boston office for a pre-shoot consultation, where we discussed the overall look that would support their brand. This included lighting, background color, clothing recommendations, and the types of expressions and the type of pose they would like. They were also interested in environmental/office shots, so we developed a shot list that would highlight both the aesthetic of their offices, as well as their teamwork approach to providing solutions for their clients.
Prior to the session, we held a pre-shoot webinar for all the participants to review recommendations for clothing, hair, makeup, etc., provide a brief insight as to what the process would be like, and answer questions – a written preparation guide was also provided.
We had about 10 minutes with each person so keeping things moving was critical, yet we wanted to ensure we got the results we were looking for. Shooting tethered to a computer is part of the process, and it allowed us to more easily coach each subject in facial expressions, posing, as well as to check that we had great images to choose from. We shot 35 people that day, along with environmental shots. Here’s a subset of the images from that day:
We had a blast! During the shoot, one of the subjects posted a shot of the work in process on Profitero’s Facebook page – the person is Laura Richardson, VP of Customer Engagement in the Americas, “holding the sub”, which is one of the “moves” people are shown to use to help them look better -https://www.facebook.com/profitero.team/posts/385999258906377
We provided the final retouched files in a variety of formats for web as well as for each individual’s LinkedIn Profile – the latter provides a consistent, high quality look across all the Boston team’s LinkedIn Profiles, further reinforcing their brand.
To learn how to get great headshots for your team that reflect your brand, download our eBook: “Marketer’s Guide for High Quality Team Images”
If you are considering executive headshots for your Boston team, click here to request a call to discuss your objectives and learn about our process for creating great headshots that reflect your brand.