Expert insights from a Chicago corporate photographer on preparing for a corporate lifestyle photography session
Corporate lifestyle photography captures how your team works — collaborating, meeting, building, and leading in real environments. These images are often used across websites, recruiting, marketing, proposals, and internal communications, which makes preparation just as important as what happens behind the camera.
As a Chicago corporate photographer specializing in corporate lifestyle photography, I’ve found that the strongest sessions are the ones planned with intention. Clear priorities, prepared spaces, coordinated teams, and a thoughtful schedule allow us to work efficiently and capture images that feel natural, useful, and aligned with how your organization communicates.
A well-prepared corporate lifestyle photography session saves time, reduces disruption, and leads to better results. This guide walks through how to prepare your space, team, wardrobe, and priorities so your session delivers images you can use across recruiting, branding, and internal communications.
Great corporate lifestyle photography isn’t about staging — it’s about preparation, planning, and understanding how your team works.
Think About How the Images Will Be Used
Before planning locations, wardrobe, or timing, consider where and how the images will be used once they are delivered. This may include website pages, recruiting and careers sections, marketing materials, presentations, proposals, or internal communications.
Sharing intended use in advance allows us to plan compositions, orientations, and pacing that support your layouts and messaging. When imagery is captured with its final purpose in mind, it becomes more effective, more versatile, and easier to use across your organization.
Plan Ahead With a Location Scout and Pre-Production Planning
Whenever possible, we recommend scheduling a location scout at least one week before your corporate lifestyle photography session. This walkthrough allows us to review your space, evaluate natural light and backgrounds, identify the strongest shooting locations, and outline key scenes and priorities in advance.
During this planning step, we also coordinate timing and sequencing with your schedule so your team can prepare the right spaces, confirm availability, and minimize disruption on the shoot day. Clear planning on the front end allows the session to run efficiently and ensures we’re capturing images that align with how your organization plans to use them.
Plan Timing and Session Flow
Corporate lifestyle photography sessions benefit from thoughtful planning while remaining flexible throughout the day. Confirm availability for key teams or leadership in advance and identify any meetings, interactions, or scenarios that should be prioritized, knowing that timing may shift based on schedules, access, or real-time activity.
A general framework allows us to move efficiently between locations while adapting as needed as sessions evolve. Building flexibility into the schedule helps minimize disruption, accommodate delays, and ensure we still capture a wide range of strong, usable imagery across the day.
Shot List and Key Priorities
Following our planning discussion and location walkthrough, outline the people, teams, spaces, and scenarios that are most important to capture during the session. This may include specific departments, leadership moments, collaboration scenes, or environments that support your messaging and communication goals.
While coverage remains flexible based on real-time schedules and availability, defining priorities in advance helps us structure the session efficiently and ensure we focus first on what matters most. Clear direction allows us to adapt as needed while still delivering the images that are most valuable to your organization.
Prepare the Spaces We’ll Be Photographing
Before the session, take time to walk through the areas that will be used on camera and prepare them in advance. We recommend tidying desks, conference tables, and shared workspaces, removing loose papers and personal items, and wiping down glass walls, windows, and tabletops to remove fingerprints and smudges.
High-resolution photography reveals details that often go unnoticed in person. A few minutes of preparation helps create cleaner backgrounds, stronger compositions, and images that feel intentional and professional. If there are specific rooms, departments, or spaces you’d like featured, confirming those in advance allows us to plan lighting and timing efficiently.
You can see examples of this style of work in our corporate lifestyle photography gallery
Have Props and Brand Elements Ready
Corporate lifestyle photography works best when it reflects real work and real environments. If relevant to your team or brand, have any props available that you’d like incorporated into the session, such as laptops, tablets, notebooks, coffee cups, or branded materials.
These details add context and help reinforce your visual identity without making the images feel staged. Preparing these items in advance allows us to move efficiently through scenes and ensures the final images reflect how your team actually works day to day.
Prepare Screens, Monitors, and Whiteboards
If monitors or screens will appear in the photos, load the desired slides, dashboards, or visuals in advance and confirm that no proprietary, confidential, or sensitive information is visible. Text is often legible in final images, especially in working and collaboration scenes, so reviewing screen content ahead of time helps avoid last-minute changes or post-production limitations.
Please also ensure any visible whiteboards, glass boards, or signage are cleared or approved prior to the session. Thoughtful preparation of these elements keeps backgrounds clean, protects internal information, and ensures your final images are fully usable across marketing, recruiting, and communications.
Clean and Stage Equipment or Vehicles
If your session includes equipment, tools, or company vehicles, take time to clean and prepare these items in advance. Wipe down visible surfaces, remove dust or debris, and check for fingerprints, streaks, or smudges that may be noticeable on camera.
These elements often become focal points in corporate lifestyle photography, especially in technical, manufacturing, or field environments. Preparing them ahead of time helps create polished visuals and ensures your images accurately reflect the standards and professionalism of your organization.
Wardrobe and Personal Presentation
Thoughtful wardrobe selection plays a major role in how professional, cohesive, and current your final images feel. Solid colors, subtle patterns, and structured pieces typically photograph best for corporate lifestyle sessions. Branded apparel is welcome when aligned with your company’s visual identity and messaging.
If your organization has guidelines regarding visible tattoos, piercings, or personal accessories, confirm those in advance so participants can prepare accordingly. Planning wardrobe ahead of time helps create consistency across the team and ensures your images reflect your brand and culture accurately.
To help participants prepare confidently, we recommend reviewing our corporate photography wardrobe recommendations in advance of the session.
Brand Restrictions and Visual Compliance
Before the session, confirm whether there are any logos, signage, products, or brand elements that should not appear in the final images. This may include restricted brands, competitor materials, internal signage, partner logos, or visual elements that require special handling or approval.
Clarifying these details in advance helps avoid reshoots, extensive retouching, or limitations on how the images can be used. It also ensures your final photography aligns with internal brand guidelines, legal requirements, and external communications standards.
Final Review Before the Session
In the days leading up to the session, take time to confirm prepared spaces, wardrobe plans, screen content, brand restrictions, and priority subjects. A final walkthrough helps catch small details early and ensures everyone arrives aligned and prepared.
Clear communication and a final review allow the session to begin smoothly and keep the focus on capturing strong, usable imagery from the moment cameras come out.
Planning a Corporate Lifestyle Photography Session?
If you’re planning a corporate lifestyle photography session or a broader corporate photography project, we’d love to hear more about what you’re working on. Every team and every organization is different, and thoughtful planning makes all the difference in how a session runs and how the images are used afterward. Feel free to reach out through our contact page to start the conversation.