For all our corporate headshot commissions we carry a studio set of professional flash lighting. This is because we do not know what kind of natural lighting will be at the client’s offices. Some offices are bright and the lighting is balanced well with the daylight, often though some offices are dark and poorly lit. Boardrooms can be lit with small tungsten spotlights that give the room a great atmosphere but are just about the worst lights for capturing a person’s headshot as you get a narrow shaft of light that highlights the top of the head and leaves most of the person’s face in shadow. Occasionally we can arrive at an office and notice that the natural lighting is perfectly balanced and there is no need for our studio lighting. This normally occurs when you have a dull overcast day and the office windows are facing a northerly direction. Which means any daylight is soft and diffused and at a reasonably low light level. Another factor is the interior office lighting. This has to balance at the same light level as the daylight and also be diffused which happens when you have an office painted white.

The samples below were all taken using natural lighting and they have a softer look than a studio based corporate headshot. They do have the benefit of still using a professional portrait lens which we have captured the headshot with a very wide aperture which means that only the face of the sitter is really in focus the rest of the image is very blurred. The only thing we would say weakens the corporate headshot samples is the fact that as you are not using a studio light you do not get the nice catch light. This is a small reflection of the studio light that appears in both the sitter’s eyes.

Corporate headshot captured using natural lightingCorporate headshot captured using natural lightingCorporate headshot captured using natural lighting