Corporate Headshot Day: How to Organise Business Portraits for Your Whole Team

A headshot day puts the whole team in front of the same camera, in the same light, on the same day. This guide is for HR, marketing and office managers in Zurich and across Switzerland who have to organise one – and want it to run without chasing people through the corridor.

What is a corporate headshot day?

It is one day on which a photographer sets up a mobile studio in your office and photographs everyone in short, booked slots. Nobody travels to a studio. The result is a consistent look for the whole team – on the website, on LinkedIn, in offers and in the annual report. Our business portraits work exactly this way.

What should you decide before you book?

Decide first where the photos will be used. The use decides the background, the crop and the format.

Which room works for a headshot day?

A quiet meeting room that you can block for the whole day works best. Tell us the location early: a photo of the room, the floor, the lift and parking for unloading help us plan the set-up. People should be able to wait outside the room, not inside it – nobody relaxes with five colleagues watching.

How do you plan the schedule?

Give everyone a fixed slot and send it as a calendar invitation. Include a few warm-up minutes in each slot – the first frames are rarely the best ones. Example: a plan for a team of 24.

• 08:00 – Set-up and light test in the meeting room.
• 09:00–12:00 – First group in individual slots, department by department.
• 12:00 – Management portraits and a group photo while everyone is in the house.
• 13:30–16:30 – Second group, plus two spare slots for people whose meetings ran over.

Spare slots are the most useful line in the plan. Someone is always stuck in a call.

What should the team know beforehand?

Send one short e-mail a week before, and a reminder the day before. It should cover:

• Date, room and the personal time slot.
• Dress code: what you would wear to an important client meeting; plain colours, no large logos or small patterns.
• Where the photos will be used.
• Whether a hair and make-up person is on site – it makes people calmer and saves retouching.

Many people say they are “not photogenic”. In our experience that is rarely true – they have just never had enough time in front of a camera. For the details, forward our guide on how to prepare for a business portrait shoot.

What about absent colleagues and new hires?

Plan for them from the start. Someone will be ill or travelling, and new people join during the year. Agree a catch-up date when you book, and choose a look that can be repeated: the same background, the same light and the same crop. This is the main reason many teams choose a clean studio background over a specific corner of the office.

How do selection and delivery work?

You see all the photos, pick the favourites, and those get retouched. Decide beforehand who chooses: each person their own picture, or one person for the whole team. Letting each person choose takes a little longer, but people use a portrait they picked themselves – including on LinkedIn. Our post on LinkedIn profile photo mistakes shows what a good crop looks like there.

The headshot day on one page

• Uses listed: website, LinkedIn, offers, press.
• Background and format decided.
• Meeting room blocked for the whole day; room photo sent to the photographer.
• Time slots in everyone’s calendar, with spare slots.
• Dress code e-mail sent a week before, reminder the day before.
• Hair and make-up person booked, if wanted.
• Group and management photos planned as separate slots.
• Catch-up date agreed for absent colleagues and new hires.
• Clear who selects the final pictures.

Frequently asked questions

Do we have to come to a studio for team headshots?

No. We bring a mobile studio to your office, so nobody has to travel and each person is away from their desk only for their own slot.

Clean studio background or the office as background?

Both work. A clean background is easiest to repeat for new hires; environmental portraits in the office show more of your company. Many teams combine both: clean portraits for everyone, office portraits for management.

What happens with colleagues who are absent on the day?

Agree a catch-up date when you book. Because background, light and crop are repeated, the later portraits match the rest of the team.

Do you photograph teams outside Zurich?

Yes – business portraits in Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern and Lausanne, across Switzerland, and abroad on request.

Swiss Moments – AI photo & video booth, event photography and business portraits in Switzerland. More than 10 years behind the camera and over 500 events.