Corporate Headshot: A Branding Tactic for the Vancouver Executive

To put your best face forward, find the portrait photographer most capable of capturing the ideal image for your company, Adrian Brijbassi writes

Your image is your brand. Control it.

Do you want customers to view you behind a desk? Standing, arms crossed, before dark walls? Not at work at all? On a beach? In a BMW crossing the Lions Gate?

Who are you? And how do you want your company to be seen?

Find a great portrait photographer in Vancouver and she’s likely to tell you that what you are after in a corporate headshot isn’t a headshot at all. As the online revolution broadens, the first impressions business executives make to prospective clients will occur online. The staid portrait, the conventional portrait, the portrait taken for a corporate brochure, the recycled portrait that’s years old: These images are poor ways to approach that critical first introduction.

 		Corporate headshots should be taken once a year. Annually, sports franchises produce team media guides that not only include photographs of the athletes, but portraits of everyone from the owner to the assistant trainer. Web site managers encourage images to be changed multiple times during a year. This strategy is both for aesthetic reasons (updating images on the web will keep viewers interested) and for the good of business (additional photos mean more quality content, which continues to emerge as the key to increasing search-engine rankings).

“What a good photo shoot will give you is a wide variety of options and poses to use on your web properties and print material,” says Yaletown-based photographer and image specialist Julia Pelish, whose work has been exhibited in Vancouver and New York. “No matter the setting, all business leaders want to exude confidence, as well as attractiveness. Those are also the essential elements of a fine portrait.”

 Confident and attractive: also ideal qualities for any brand. As all corporate leaders know, they’re constantly representing the company. Opting for the best in portrait photography is practicing necessary branding strategy. Some corporate headshots can look like mug shots, others — as the owner of Julia Pelish Photography points out — can be so perfect they will look like they belong on a wall, framed and ready to be observed.

When seeking a portrait photographer, Vancouver business leaders should first peruse a portfolio of work. If they are delighted by what they see, they should make an appointment to consult with the photographer, making sure her vision meets the image of the company and that she has the necessary equipment to produce the dynamic corporate portrait being sought. Anyone who books a portrait session with a high-performance photographer should also be prepared to allocate two hours or more to the photo shoot. The image and the brand are well worth the time and resources.

Adrian Brijbassi has won multiple awards for his writing - which has been published in literary journals, newspapers and anthologies - and was named one of the “35 Greatest Rock Writers of Generation X” in 2004. He writes books, too.

Julia Pelish Photography, based in Vancouver, specializes in portrait, wedding, commercial and fine art photography. Digital imaging and web-site services - including content building - are also offered.

Copyright Julia Pelish Photography of Vancouver, 2006. close window