{"id":24442,"date":"2014-11-07T09:17:06","date_gmt":"2014-11-07T13:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=24442"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:19:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T05:19:06","slug":"photo-gear-setup-corporate-headshots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/photo-gear-setup-corporate-headshots\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo gear & logistics: Corporate headshots"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photo gear\u00a0& logistics: Corporate headshots<\/h1>\n

With any professional shoot, forethought and planning is a necessity. For personal photography there’s always place for serendipity. But relying on luck with a professional shoot isn’t going to go all that far. The same goes for photographing on-location headshots – planning is essential.<\/p>\n

With the\u00a0on-location corporate headshots<\/a>\u00a0described in a previous article, I aimed for efficiency and speed<\/strong>. I set up various speedlights and soft boxes around the office place for environmental headshots. This way I could step each person through the various spots and get similar photos of everyone. But there was a certain flexibility in the final look\u00a0that was okay with those portraits. Still, the setups were done beforehand. I also worked on my own, so I put some thought into how to do the logistics single-handedly.<\/p>\n

I was approached by a large law firm\u00a0in New York to do their headshots – more than 200 people that I had to take headshots of\u00a0partners and personnel.\u00a0The company needed corporate headshots that had a specific look to them, with a specific value to the grey background – all in a way to create a consistency<\/strong> with the photos, online and in printed material. With more than 200 people that need to be photographed over the course of two\u00a0months on\u00a0various days, there had to be a way to ensure repeatability<\/strong>. The look wasn’t environmental, but more conservative and traditional.<\/p>\n

I decided to go with studio lighting gear, instead of speedlights. More power, larger\u00a0light modifiers, and faster recycling times. The Profoto lights are also known for a more consistent color balance. Ideal to speed up my workflow afterwards when editing the photos. With the environmental headshots, the speedlights were sufficient because I was shooting at wider apertures and higher ISO settings to bring in the ambient light. With these more traditional headshots, the ambient light wasn’t a consideration at all and I wanted more juice than a speedlight.<\/p>\n

This did mean carting most of my studio gear on location. I did a test setup when I first met the PR team to discuss this. This gave me an idea of the logistics. Just the logistics of\u00a0getting all that gear out of the car and into the building, and setting up fast, meant I had to reconsider a few things.\u00a0Then of course, at the end of each day, all this had to be done\u00a0in reverse. And repeated over a number of days. Keep in mind that this is Manhattan where finding parking in front of a building to load and unload can be a real hassle. There’s just no time to unload a lot of bags.<\/p>\n

With the test run, I had a large hand cart that I strapped bag and cases onto. But this was a bit too clumsy. It took a bit too much time to unpack the car on the sidewalk and load the hand cart. Then, navigating elevators were also not as smooth as I wanted it all to be.<\/p>\n

More than struggling, I hate the appearance of struggling. There’s a real\u00a0appeal in not looking clumsy in front of a client. Clearly it is just so much better to appear professional, well-organized\u00a0and efficient.<\/p>\n

This then is a description of just how I did that on the subsequent days where we did the headshots – rolling in looking slick and proficient and setting up fast!<\/p>\n

When I posted an iPhone shot of the setup to Facebook, there were a lot of questions and interest in the setup, so I thought it might make for an longer discussion here. Oh, the crazy person at the top is my assistant on this shoot, Presley Ann<\/a>. Before any of the company’s people sit down for their headshots, I need to be completely ready, and she sat in for the test shots.<\/p>\n

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Here’s what we rolled in with – two large roller cases containing everything you see in the photo at the top, as well as a bunch of\u00a0other\u00a0gear\u00a0just out of shot.<\/p>\n

The taller bag is the Photoflex Transpac roller case<\/a> (B&H<\/em><\/a>) \/ Amazon<\/a>)<\/em> from which I stripped out all the dividers so I can more easily fill it up with light-stands and umbrellas. The interior of this roller case is 46″ \/ 116 cm tall, so anything\u00a0that is tall goes in this bag.<\/p>\n

The shorter bag there is the Think Tank Production Manager 40<\/a>\u00a0which\u00a0is a high-capacity rolling gear case specifically designed for lighting gear.\u00a0What first caught my attention when I saw Think Tank’s newsletter about this bag, is that the promotional photo showed it taking four Profoto D1 heads … exactly what I have. So this bag then was the ideal solution to cart\u00a0my studio lights around with. With Think Tank’s renowned quality, I knew this would be very sturdy, well-padded, with wheels that just glide.<\/p>\n

This is just the start of packing it …<\/p>\n

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The taller bag is the\u00a0Photoflex Transpac Dual Kit Case<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>),\u00a0which is a tall roller case that can take (folded) stands up to 46″ in height. All the soft boxes and light-stands and back-drop stands went into this case.<\/p>\n

There was\u00a0just another smaller\u00a0camera\u00a0bag – the\u00a0Think Tank Retrospective 20<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>) on my shoulder. I kept the main camera and lens (a 70-200mm f\/2.8) in this bag, as well as some personal items.<\/p>\n

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The lighting setup<\/h2>\n

The lighting setup is\u00a0very similar to that described here:<\/p>\n