An office photoshoot does more than fill your website or social feeds—it builds trust, fosters connection, and strengthens your employer brand. In a time when candidates crave authenticity, real employee photos are far more impactful than stock images.

Planning a photoshoot involves more than meets the eye: Which offices should you feature? How do you ensure diverse representation without repeating faces? Should you choose an agency or a freelancer? What should employees wear? 

With thoughtful planning, your photoshoot can capture the essence of your company, reinforce your values, and give candidates a true sense of what it’s like to work with you. Here’s how to make it happen.

7 Steps to Planning an Office Photoshoot

Capturing a library of photos that authentically represent your employer brand doesn’t just happen. From aligning with key stakeholders to choosing the right locations and employees, here are seven essential steps to make your office photoshoot a success before you even get in front of the camera.

1. Align stakeholders
2. Build a shotlist 
3. Define your photography style
4. Choose your photographer
5. Select featured locations
6. Nominate employees to participate
7. Prep employees ahead of the photoshoot

Now, let’s dive into each of these considerations. 

1. Align Stakeholders

Aligning the right stakeholders ensures your office photoshoot serves multiple purposes and reaches the right audiences. With input from key departments, you’ll capture photos that resonate internally and externally, hitting all the right notes for employer branding, recruitment, and employee engagement. 

Here’s who to include and why:

• Employer Branding: They set the overall brand vision and guidelines, ensuring photos align with your culture and resonate on key platforms.
• Internal Communications: Photos can enhance internal newsletters, recognition programs, and other communications.
• Talent Acquisition: They’ll know which photos are needed to support high-priority roles and critical hiring needs.
• Marketing & Communications: They can help identify opportunities for your photos to make an impact beyond talent initiatives, such as in sustainability or social impact reports. Plus, they may even be open to sharing budget or resources to maximize the photoshoot’s value.

By aligning stakeholders upfront, you can maximize the impact of your photoshoot. For example, see below how Dell Technologies repurposed employee images and quotes in their annual ESG Report, which is released to investors, customers, employees, and other key stakeholders each year. 

2. Build a Shot List

A clear shot list is your roadmap for a smooth, effective photoshoot, guiding your photographer to capture images that serve your goals and channels. You may revisit and adjust your shot list as the photoshoot approaches, but building this list early on will help you choose the right locations and participants.

Consider these elements as you plan:

• Channels and Use Cases: Determine where photos will live—career site, social media, ads, job boards—and note the dimensions of specific images you need, like banner images for landing pages. 
• Key Talent Categories: Focus on high-priority talent groups, such as early-career tech or manufacturing roles, and select employees and locations accordingly.
• Strategic Business Focus: If you have goals like sustainability or gender parity, include eco-friendly spaces and feature women in leadership.

Your shot list should also account for the types of photos you need. Aim for a healthy mix of individual portraits and group photos, and be sure to capture environmental images of spaces that reflect your work culture. See some examples of each below.

3. Define Your Photography Style

Think a photo is just a photo? Not quite! Lighting, candidness, and mood all shape the feel of your images. Are you going for a lively, energetic vibe or a calm, professional tone? Do you want employees looking into the camera, or caught in candid moments? Should the background be clean, or full of details? These choices all impact the final look.

Let’s look at a few examples. On AARP’s careers page, they opted for more traditional portraits with clean backgrounds that allow the focus to be on the career site copy: 

Whereas Dell Technologies’ careers page features candid and group shots, letting the photo tell its own story. 

Whatever your photography style is, consistency is essential to building a cohesive employer brand that brings your culture to life in an authentic way. Your employer brand and marketing guidelines should be able to help here. 

4. Choose the Right Photographer

With your stakeholders aligned and your shot list in place, it’s time to pick a photographer to bring your vision to life. Each organization might approach this differently.

Using an internal creative team ensures familiarity with your brand, but many employer brand leaders find that internal teams are often tied up with customer-facing projects, which can slow things down. Hiring local freelancers may seem like a quick and cost-effective choice, but it can lead to inconsistencies across locations, creating a disjointed brand image.

Agencies specializing in employer branding offer strong advantages. They understand how to capture authentic employee images and often have experience across industries and brand styles. Plus, they’re skilled at delivering polished, consistent results across multiple locations.

Whatever route you take, ask photographers for relevant examples and lookbooks that match your vision. At Stories Inc., we kick off every photo and video project with a Creative Discovery call to ensure alignment with your goals and style.

5. Identifying Locations to Feature

It can be tough to decide which locations to feature, especially if your company has a broad geographic presence. Where possible, rotate featured locations to give fair representation across regions and make employees feel celebrated and valued.

To choose your first locations, consult your shot list and identify locations that allow you to capture as many of them as possible. 

For example, if you’re a U.S.-based automaker looking to refresh your career site, support campus hiring, celebrate manufacturing workers, and highlight sustainability, you might choose two strategic locations: a corporate office with strong early career initiatives and eco-friendly facilities, and a manufacturing site producing hybrid and electric vehicles. This approach would give a well-rounded view of your organization while supporting key objectives.

6. Selecting Employees to Participate

With your locations chosen, it’s time for the fun part: nominating employees! Consult your shot list to ensure you’re including employees who represent key job categories and talent groups aligned with your talent strategy.

If you’re less familiar with a specific location, enlist help from hiring managers, ERG leaders, or site managers to identify standout team members who reflect your culture.

Pro Tip: Before sending invitations, finalize and review your participant list to ensure it’s diverse across roles, seniority, and backgrounds. We’ve seen brand leaders accidentally nominate only senior leaders, for example, which can give a skewed view of your organization.

7. Prepare Employees to Feel Camera-Ready!

Prepping employees for their photoshoot helps them feel comfortable and confident in front of the camera — which ultimately makes for better photos. Start by explaining the photoshoot process, from how long it will take to what they can expect, so they feel prepared.

Employees almost always ask what to wear, so give them guidance! Remind them that the goal is to authentically represent the company culture, and that you want them to look and feel like themselves. We find that many employees resort to wearing branded company shirts. If you don’t want that look in your photos, make sure to communicate that to participants. 

Pro Tip: We typically recommend employees wear the more polished end of what they’d wear on a typical day — maybe a day they’re meeting with their manager or have a presentation.

Finally, sharing examples of previous photoshoots can also reassure employees that they’ll look great in the final product. This extra step can make a big difference, helping everyone relax, look natural, and feel their best.

Make Your Office Photoshoot Vision a Reality

With the right planning, an office photoshoot becomes more than just a collection of images. It’s an opportunity to bring your brand story to life and showcase your unique company culture. By aligning with stakeholders, planning strategically, and preparing your employees, you’ll create a library of photos that speaks volumes about your team and values.

Need employee photos? Get in touch with our team to explore an employee photoshoot!