Client: M&O Marketing
Creative Director: Sarah Brown
Photographer: Marek Dziekonski
Production manager: Shane Tincu
Brief: To photograph executive and employee portraits / headshots of about 60 subjects over two days. To design and build a small set on location to accommodate medium as well as full body portraits.

It’s always a good day when you get a call from a new client who loves your photography and is ready to book right off the bat for a shoot that’s 1 week out. It’s even a better day when you find out that they come to you from a recommendation by one of your favorite copywriters (thank you Suzanne Rondeau!) and an incredible PR person – Aimee Spencer of M&O Marketing, who you’ve been simultaneously working with on another project. Sarah Brown, of M&O Marketing in Southfield, reached out looking for an executive and employee headshot and portrait photographer in Metro Detroit area. She’s been working on an update to their website and on a refresh of their brand and was in need of dramatic portraits. While Sarah pointed us in the general direction of what she was looking for, she was confident in our work and gave us a free hand to work out the specifics. A quick look at the space we would be shooting in revealed a small issue – I really wanted the full body images to have a high end feel to them but the space of our temporary studio was carpeted.  After quickly brainstorming with my production manager, Shane Tincu, we decided to build a small set to aid in upgrading that look. A few days later I made a quick stop at Home Depot to pick up laminate wood boards we planned to use to build out the new floor as part of our set.

A few days later, armed with a plan and materials it was time to shoot. We showed up at M&O Marketing’s offices in Southfield quite early at 6am, giving ourselves 3 hours to build the floor, set up our lights and be ready to photograph at 9am. Shane’s handiness was absolutely invaluable here as he was able to put the floor together and problem solve all the issues we ran into in no time.

For our light set up we used 3 Paul C Buff Einstein lights. Our key was a Beauty Dish, for the kicker we set up a strip box and our background light was a monolight with barndoors. We also set up two Imapct Super Collapsible Backgrounds for fill and the headshot background. Below are a few behind the scenes images as well as a few finished portraits.

Give us a call if you’ve been thinking about updating your brand and would like to get an idea of what a photoshoot like this might cost.