Populous Architects - Staff Portraits Brisbane

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Boring Staff Portrait? Not if You're Populous...

For a lot of people, having their staff portrait taken is up there with having their right arm ripped off.  Not if you're with Populous Architects here in Brisbane though...

There are tons of ways a good photographer can make people feel at ease but one of the best strategies is distraction by interaction. Portraits like this give your customers insight into who you are as a company and who your staff are as individuals. With Populous: I took a bunch of non-skivvy wearing, forward thinking, sport loving architects, a few sporting props and some 80's pop tunes... The results? Much more interesting than your average corporate portrait.

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Our Populous Canuck and hockey nut showing his skills with the puck and stick

Distraction comes in many forms; laughter, music, conversation.  One of the most effective and yet underutilised is having a concept.  Having a concept helps people to focus on something other than how they look, the intimidating camera, the strange beeps and bright flashes, and how to smile 'properly'.

Populous are a firm of architects who love sport.  And I mean, REALLY love sport.  They are responsible for some of the most incredible stadia and facilities around the world (baseball, motorsport, equestrian, tennis, basketball... The list goes on), and are heavily involved in the development of facilities and event design/planning for the 2012 London Summer Olympics and the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics.

Sporting nerds, really. 

Populous

My first meeting with Populous was in this amazing shared space with a swing.  Yes, an actual swing, attached to the ceiling, that you could swing on. Pretty soon it became clear we needed to do something more engaging than standard portraits.  We ran with the idea of Portraits with Paraphernalia.  I knew the distraction element was going to be very high, so I was pretty confident we'd get some great shots.  But I must admit, even I was blown away by some of the things people were prepared to do!

I didn't even know competitive frisbee existed!  Although I wonder if catching it with your hands would be easier... I guess this way gets you more points?

The Equipment

Staff were asked to bring in a piece of sporting equipment or memorabilia important to them. All 26 did AND most of them had also thought about how they wanted to be photographed with it. So, right from the beginning they were engaged. 

I shot to laptop so everyone could see how they looked on screen and how our ideas translated into images.  This led to people taking more risks, having more fun and as result we got much more engaging images.

His batting average is better than The Don's...

But what about 'normal' headshots?

You can't always have your CFO in the shareholder report wielding a cricket bat or riding a snowboard.  You do also need more serious, formal portraits.  Well, we did both during this shoot. All the equipment ones were shot first, which meant we had fun first - always helps to loosen things up.  But most importantly people had seen the results from earlier and trusted me to produce a great result when it was just them in front of the camera.

The End Result...?

We got a great mix of fun, serious, gentle, classy, hilarious and a little bit weird.  

And yes, the swing definitely made it into one of the shots...

Next time you're thinking about staff portraits remember, it doesn't always have to be serious. And you can give people a sense of your business' identity along with it.