Taking team photos

For photos of your team, consistency is important, especially as you’ll probably add the odd one later, and you don’t want new ones to stand out as different to the rest.

Location

We recommend taking photos against a plain background, e.g. a white wall; this is the easiest way to get consistent reasonable quality photos.

Ensure you have as much light as possible. If you’ve got sufficient natural light, use that, otherwise just ensure that the lighting doesn’t add a colour to the image – fluorescent bulbs are a common culprit, adding an unpleasant green hue.

Equipment

Use the best camera you have available, but by following these instructions, you should be able to take reasonable photos with even a phone.
SLR – use ‘portrait’ mode, or if you’re comfortable with it, use Aperture override mode, and a wide aperture (~f/1.4).
Phone – If you’ve got an iPhone, use “portrait” mode on the camera. Other phones may have similar modes.
Do not apply any filters to the photo. Even if your team photos are shown B&W, please take colour photos.
Always take photos of individuals rather than groups. Group photos make it difficult to identify who is who, and require you to retake the whole group when one person joins/leaves the team.
In some charities such as churches it is common to have couples serving together; in this scenario, taking a photo of them together can be appropriate, but we’d recommend using individual photos where only one of them is on a team (e.g. if John & Jane serve together as homegroup leaders, then a couple photo is appropriate; but if Jane is on the youth team and John isn’t, get an individual photo of Jane for the youth team).

Posing

Ask the subject to stand about 2’ away from the wall, body turned slightly to one side, and head facing the camera.

Frame the subject with their head and shoulders clearly visible, and plenty of space around their head. We can always crop the image, but we can’t uncrop it! Team photos are usually cropped to a square or circle, with the head centred, so we need enough space around them to do this.

Despite it being a ‘portrait’ photo, always take horizontal (landscape) photos. If you take vertical photos, the tendency is to crop too tightly, and in some situations, we will want the extra space to the sides.

Wardrobe

Follow an appropriate dress code for your organisation. You can have some variation to appeal to a wider audience (e.g. a law firm might have some photos jackets on, some jackets off, but all would be shirts, not t-shirts, to maintain a professional feel). A charity would likely want a more casual, approachable look.

Avoid clothing with prominent logos or slogans.