The company
The Corporate Headshot Company photographs the people of professional-services firms to one written standard, in the firm's own offices, and keeps that standard across every office and every joiner. We sell by the day to the firm, never to individuals. The travelling studio, the ten-minute windows, tethered approval, hand-finishing to a published specification, the sitter portal and the quarterly programme are the parts of one idea: that a firm's people should look like one firm, and should go on looking like it.
The Managing Director
Aemilia Cumberland is a London commercial photographer. Her portrait work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and her commercial work includes Formula E, Extreme H, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Concours of Elegance, Porsche, Nicholas Mee Aston Martin, HQ Aviation, Vertere Acoustics and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. She trained in commercial photography at the University of the Arts London. She leads the company, writes every client's Standard, photographs the London days and the executive sessions, and checks every finished image against its set before it is released. Her wider work is at aemilia.co.uk.
Associates and finishing
Overlapping days, second stations on large days and overseas offices are photographed by associate photographers briefed to the firm's Standard and working under the Managing Director's direction, with the same kit list and the same lighting diagram. Finishing is done by a retoucher working to the finishing specification, and every image is checked by the Managing Director before release. The firm is told who will photograph each day before it is confirmed.
The kit
Two flight cases. Two lights with modifiers, mains or battery. A backdrop in three tones and a stand. A camera and lenses, a tethered laptop and a screen for approvals, a check-in tablet, extension leads and spares for everything. The studio is up in 30 minutes and down in 20, and nothing is taped to a wall.
Where we work
London first: the City, Canary Wharf and the West End, from Wilfred Street in Westminster. Then the firm's other offices, by proposal.
The photographer's eye
Corporate headshots are the discipline; portraiture is the craft behind it. The same direction, light and patience that make a face read at thumbnail size on LinkedIn are what make these.
