What happens on a company headshot day?

It starts with a proposal. You tell us the head count, the office and roughly when; we reply within a working day with a day plan, a room specification and a price that matches the pricing page. A signed order and a deposit confirm the date. From then on the scheduler does the organising.

The scheduler is one link. You can circulate it in an all-staff email, with a short message we supply, and let people choose their own ten-minute windows. Or you can upload a list of names and allocate the windows yourself, in which case everyone receives their time with a one-tap option to keep it or choose another. Either way, you can see who has booked, and nobody can see anyone else's booking.

Each person receives a confirmation by email and text with the date, the time, the room, the floor contact's name, a calendar file and a sitter number. The sitter number is theirs for the rest of the process: it is on the running order, on the screen when they are photographed, and it is how they open their gallery afterwards. They receive a reminder a week before, the day before and forty-five minutes before their window, and can move their window until 24 hours before the day.

A week before the day we ask for a photograph of the room and the floor contact's number. The room is a meeting room of about four by three metres, with two sockets, a door that closes and the table pushed to one end. If there is no power we bring battery lighting. If your building needs an insurance certificate and an equipment list before letting two flight cases through reception, we send them.

We arrive at eight, by whichever entrance the building prefers. The studio is up by half past: a backdrop, two lights, a camera on a tethered laptop with a screen beside it, and a check-in tablet by the door. Nothing is taped to the walls and nothing is in the corridor.

The first window is at half past eight. People arrive at their time, not before. There is no queue, because everyone has a window, and no line of colleagues outside the door, which is the reason people who dislike being photographed find the day bearable.

Each person's window has four parts. They arrive and check in, with the QR code on their phone or by saying their name: about two minutes. They are photographed, with direction on posture, where to look and what to do with their hands, for five or six minutes, with a second look if they want one. They see their frames on the screen and choose the two or three that will go to finishing: two minutes. They are back at their desk inside twelve.

The approval is the point of shooting tethered. Nothing goes to finishing that the person has not already chosen, so nobody leaves wondering whether there was a frame they liked, and the finished image, when it arrives, can only improve on one they have already approved.

Forty windows run from half past eight to half past four, with a break at lunch. Four windows are held back for walk-ups and for anyone whose meeting overran; the floor contact can release them during the day. The photographer's running order shows who is next by name, title and sitter number, so there is no calling of names across the office. People who miss the day altogether are listed for a catch-up session.

Partners and managing directors are usually photographed separately on an Executive Day, with two set-ups and more time, or at the start of the day in longer windows. If the firm has chosen two looks, a Classic for the team and an Editorial for partners, both are photographed to the same Standard so the team page still reads as one firm.

The last window ends at half past four. The studio is down in twenty minutes and the room is as we found it. The evening after the day, everyone who was photographed can see the frames they approved, as watermarked proofs, in the portal.

Every approved frame goes through the same seven steps: selection against the Standard, technical correction, skin and detail, light and tone, framing, formats and a check against the rest of the set. It takes 15 to 25 minutes an image. A day of forty people is about thirteen hours of finishing, which is why the finished set is promised within ten working days rather than the same afternoon.

When a person's finished image is ready they receive an email and a text with a link to their gallery. The gallery shows the frames they approved, the finished image in every placement format with its size and intended use, and a button to download everything at once. They can request one round of changes within seven days. Nobody has to forward anyone's files.

The firm's administrator sees every person's status, from booked to delivered, and can download the whole day as one set named to the firm's convention. After the first day the firm also receives its Corporate Headshot Standard, the two-page document that records how everyone was photographed, so that the next day, the next office and the next joiner can be matched to it.

Confirmed a date and a room, named a floor contact and circulated a link. The rest happened around you.

Next step: see the Standard Day and team headshots in London.