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Business

Business photography that doesn't look like stock. Behind-the-scenes moments, campaigns, product and food work, aerial brand placements — whatever tells the story of how the business actually runs. Clean, considered, and built to work across a site, a deck, and a LinkedIn profile.

Six colorful ceramic bowls of tomato soup topped with toasted bread, cheese and parsleyLit digital billboard beside a multilane highway at dusk with a guitar-shaped tower on the horizonWoman opening her mouth wide for a spoonful of rice lifted from a bowlWoman in a black dress drawing a line graph on a classroom whiteboard, back turnedChildren's hands spreading white icing in a small metal pan beside bowls of sprinklesRows of hair extension bundles in blonde and brown shades displayed on a salon wallTwo women seated at a mirrored counter in a small studio behind a ring light

Real tasks, real hands, the room as it looks on a Tuesday rather than after it has been tidied for a camera. People occupied with something they know how to do stop performing within about a minute, and that is when a company starts to look like a place rather than a brochure.

Two pairs of hands guiding fabric under the needle of an industrial sewing machineLarge team in matching blue shirts posed with soccer balls on indoor turf fieldHairstylist in a maroon blouse sectioning a seated client's long dark hair in a salonDental worker in a pink gown, mask and gloves treating a reclined patient's teethMan wearing magnifying loupes examining a small item at a cluttered laboratory benchTwo men laughing while working over a large white panel in a warehouse

The brief is almost always some version of “we need photos that do not look like stock.” Fair. Corporate photography earned that reputation honestly — the handshake, the fake meeting, five people gathered around one laptop that nobody is looking at.The way out is photographing actual work.

Nine people in business attire standing in a glass atrium with tall tropical plantsSeven staff in navy scrubs standing in a row against a marbled wall logoBusiness team photographed at their workplaceBoy in a red kippah turning pages of a thick book at a classroom deskGroup of nine staff in matching black uniforms posing together in a dental office lobbyTwo smiling young women reviewing papers together at a desk in a sunlit classroomTwo teenage girls reading an open book together at a table beside bright windowsBoy in a navy polo marking a printed article with a red pen at a deskMasked esthetician working under a magnifying lamp on a reclining client in a pink-lit roomNine officials in suits and dresses posed with flags and a round municipal seal

I keep the light close to what the room already has, just cleaner. The point is for a client or a candidate to look at the pictures and recognise the same place when they walk in.

Access, and knowing what the pictures are for

Booking is the easy part. Access decides the photographs. I need someone who can walk me through the building, say who is happy to be photographed and who is not, then let people carry on with whatever they were already doing.

It also helps to know what the pictures are for. Hiring, a sales deck, a site rebuild — each one sends me to a different part of the room. And tell me when the work actually happens. Every business has a dead hour and a busy one, and the busy one is where the photographs are.

The mistake is trying to look bigger

Companies brief this shoot as if the job were to make the place look bigger than it is. Wrong target. Nobody deciding whether to work with you is grading ceiling height. They are working out whether the place is real, and scale is one of the easier things to catch out.

Shoot from the right corner and a modest office reads like a floor at a firm three times the size. The person looking knows something is off before they can name it. So I photograph the room at the size it is. Nothing in that needs defending later.

Explore my other photography categories or get in touch if you’re planning a project.

Planning something like this?

Tell me what you have in mind and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person to shoot it.