Business Portraiture and Headshots

Corporate or business portraits are a staple for many photographers, but many often face a few key challenges when it comes to taking business portraits: How to shoot and control light bounce in small spaces, how to photograph people with glasses, how to photograph older people, how to pose subjects and determining the best equipment to use.

In this live photography workshop, Karl addresses all those problems, providing practical solutions and demonstrating exactly how to overcome these problems as he shoots live.

He photographs two different subjects in a number of different lighting setups, showing how you can achieve great results straight out of camera with well-positioned lights and just basic modifiers.


In this class:

  • Portrait photography: Business portraits
  • Recommended equipment for business portraits
  • Efficient workflow
  • Posing: Business portrait poses
  • Lighting setups for business portraits: Using one and two lights
  • Photographing subjects with glasses

For more business portrait photography classes, visit our Portrait section.

Questions? Please post them in the comments section below.

Comments

  1. Hi Karl. Everything on his website is great!!! I just recently joined and this was the first video I saw because at my job I will be be taking corporate head shots for several people. I learned a lot! Would it also apply getting the soft box closer to my subject if he/she is dark skinned? Thank you

    2. Author

      Hi Ricardo, When photographing people with darker skin you will need to increase the light by a stop or more depending on their skin colour as the darker skin will absorb more light, the position of the soft box would be the same as the soft box is modifying the light and if you wanted the same lighting effect on your subject the you would need to keep the position of the modifier the same. A good explanation of about achieving the correct exposure can be seen in this tutorial in particular at 13.28 but it is worth watching the full tutorial 🙂

  2. Great live show. Always nice to see what we have learned in theory put into more practical examples

  4. i got one pretty good just with top light and a white board on the bottom, thx for the live videos……

  5. Thanks Karl!!! The great live show as always! Let me ask you, what brand of triflector do you have or is it DIY ?

  6. Hi Karl, great job as always, just got a question about shinny skin (lads)
    how do you usually deal with that? do you use some make-up powder to reduce it or do you asked them to wipe it off with a towel or something?

    1. Hi Martin, Yes I get them to use tissue paper or a towel immediately before the shot, make sure your studio isn’t too warm and then if all else fails make up powder but as I pointed out in the live business portraits show you will see how I use a softbox makes a big difference too.

  9. Hi Karl, I am trying to watch this video, 2 days after it was live, but just shows a message on the video that it will be starting at 6pm GMT, any advice. Thanks x

    1. Hi Mandy, the video has been up on replay an hour after the show and I’ve checked it? Try refreshing the page and click through on the links again.

  10. Hey Karl, I am about 2/3rds through watching the replay (missed it live). A question about the different height people…would it be more feasible to have them all sit on a stool to keep them closer in height since it is less than a 3/4 portraits?

    1. Hi Brian, if they are suited and booted then sitting can often crumple the suit and ties so i prefer standing for suited business man.

  12. Thanks Karl for getting this video up, I missed the live session 🙁
    Once again, Karl, you have simplified a process for me that I was overcomplicating in my business portrait shoots. Great work and loving visualeducation.com best £12 any photographer can spend.

  13. Chaz27

    Learned a lot with this and planning to put it to good use.
    I didn’t realize the effect of the softbox distance. A couple of weeks ago I was talking shots of our young neice. Afterwards on the computer I was seeing some stronger lit areas on her forehead. My exposure was good and couldn’t figure out why.
    Well tonight I got my answer. I did have the light further away.

  15. Honestly, this is very frustrating. I have high speed internet here in the US, But I have noticed that streaming your videos can be VERY problematic, and there is constant stopping, starting, and having to reload the video because the stream will not resume correctly.

    1. Author

      Hi Randy, this live show has only just finished and the video feed is automatically still encoding in the background and this can take a short while to complete. If you are having issues with other videos please send us an email to so we can look into it for you. Thanks Tim

    2. To clarify, this is mostly problematic when fast forwarding or jumping to other parts of the video, rather than watching the whole video in one sitting.

      1. Author

        Hi Randy, when watching the live videos on our website they preload or buffer the next few minutes of video ahead of the part you are currently watching to make playback as smooth as possible. If you jump to a point further into the video this section of the video may not have been preloaded yet. If you are jumping ahead to a new section of the video you could try pausing it for a short period to let your browser preload the new section of video for a smoother playback. Thanks Tim

    3. DougHowell

      Got to the gear icon in the Vimeo window and set it to 540p, that makes it run smoothly. You can fast forward or rewind without buffering.

    4. Hi Randy, I’ve had a few people test it here and no problems? It’s hosted by Vimeo which is american and the servers are in the US so the location shouldn’t be an issue. I think you were trying to view it at the time it was still encoding immediately after the live show. Let us know if you are still having problems though and we can check further.

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