Lately, I have had the pleasure of capturing Investors Group business portraits. This company has locations in many cities. Working particularly with the Burlington and Oakville IG groups, I had the chance to get to know more about them. I discovered business professionals who are truly committed to helping everyday people and organizations to invest their savings for a better future.
When you have the opportunity to connect with them during one-on-one interactions, you can discover a lot! These individuals were such great humans with a professional way of doing business. Often times business portraits have a tendency of depicting their subjects as stiff, arrogant and unapproachable. Nowadays in the business world, those traits just won’t do! IG group professionals are the complete opposite of this stereotype too. They are the kind of people that love to help and assist their clients.
Ingrid, a member of Spence and associate at Investors Group in Brampton is one of those people. As the marketing person behind the Spence and Associate brand, she took excellent care of representing this group of people. She reached out to me before Christmas to coordinate some dates for us to capture their Investors Group business portraits.
Investors Group business portraits that support their brand 100%
Undoubtedly, Investors Group is a large successful company. With a great reputation and thousands of employees, it is imperative that they have strict rules and guidelines regarding how each portrait representing the company should be taken. This included instructions and manuals with all the company specifications and regulations written for photographers each division hires. Especially, there was great care dedicated to examples of what is or isn’t acceptable for the portraits. Unquestionably, I agreed with every single one of the points! For professional portraits, you have to take in to consideration quality of lighting as well as the quality of postproduction. As a result, all of that comes with the price tag of a true professional business portrait. Imagine if each IG Wealth Management office started doing whatever they thought was best for their business portraits? Obviously, the brand would lose its consistency and discover future repercussions.
With their business brand front of mind, Ingrid wanted me to work on two separate fronts. First, she wanted professional business portraits for the team and the individuals according to all of the standards and specifications. On the other hand, she also wanted portraits that were a little “outside the box” for IG. This one was not so much breaking the rules, but more like bending them a little bit. Ingrid was trying to introduce photos of the team with their business casual attire as a better representation of their day to day interactions with their clients.
How are business portraits done in big companies?
What an experience this photo shoot was! First, Ingrid had reserved the boardroom for the entire day of our session. Then, almost every member of the team took time out of their morning to help me move the equipment from my entire set-up all the way up to their 3rd floor office. Having all of this equipment accessible gave me the chance to use two different set-ups for easy and seamless photographing. Ingrid had arranged for food, snacks and water to keep everyone comfortable and satisfied. There was even a mirror, make-up etc. for quick touch ups. Everything that could be needed was there. As a result, no one lost a minute of their precious before Holiday work time through the power of Ingrid’s organization.
Having all this preparation ultimately helped my situation as well. With the team members comfortable, I was able to connect faster and build their trust. In every session I work to remove the invisible wall that my clients tend to build when they are in front of the camera. Ingrid’s attention to detail worked like a charm to diminish this need. Every new of the team member was more and more relaxed bringing along their unique personality and perfect attitude. With each of them, I was able to take both sets of photos seamlessly.
Once their individual photos were complete, we began to organize the group ones. First, we took some group images at the background and then ventured around the office, finishing with their daily meeting. Here, I was able to take some behind the scenes action photos. Lastly, I made sure to photograph some of their marketing materials that they were rightfully very proud of creating.
Rebranding of Investors group to IG Wealth Management
In the end, while this photo session took the entire workday, it truly felt like no more than a few hours. Working with people like Ingrid and groups such as Spence and Associates is very rewarding. It helps me to realize the satisfaction of capturing images that represent professionals in such an authentic way to their clients. By doing this so successfully, I am also becoming a part of this amazing company and helping them to help others invest their money for years of prosperity.
I have kept in touch with Ingrid after our first session. I support them with any needs they may have regarding the photos taken at their session. Recently Investors Group rebranded to IG Wealth Management. As a result, with this new brand came important visual messaging changes as well. We came together one more time to update the photos for them. The story of that session is to be continued in our upcoming blog where I will be featuring Spence and Associates once again. This time however, Raid, a junior Spence, will be introduced to us.
If you would like, here is a blog post ” Top 7 reasons why my clients need me as a headshot photographer “ that outlines the top 7 reasons among many, many others why clients come to me for business photos.
My passion and biggest asset is taking the time to make every client comfortable and relaxed before I even pick up the camera. The result? Photos of you that actually look like you at your best! I can prove to you how much you can enjoy having your picture taken. Lifestyle photography is about the experience that happens to be served up along side of some great photos.
Specialties:
Family Photography for families that like to move around and enjoy their photo time, Wedding Photography for couples looking for a mixture of photojournalistic, contemporary and traditional images and Professional Corporate headshots that are far from cheesy and stiff.