If you want to have a team photo taken for your company, there can be quite a bit involved. A team photo can vary in size. From small companies with a few employees in the office to large groups.
So what is involved in taking a team photo? What do you have to think about? And what do you have to take into account?
In this blog I will take you behind the scenes of the making of the team photo of Roofing Company Peter Ummels. How to make a team photo?
Request
Last March I received an email with the request for a team photo from Roofing Company Peter Ummels. The team consisted of approximately 50 employees.
In general, you can say that this is a considerably large group. But the real challenge came later in the mail; the communications officer asked if it was possible to include all 25 vehicles of the company in the photo. The fleet consisted of 4 large crane trucks, about 17 work vans of the size of a Sprinter and a few more vans.
Requests like that make me bounce on my desk chair with excitement.
The first thing we do is agree on dates. 'Dates', as in plural? Right. We agree on two dates. The first is the primary date on which we will take the photo in principle. The second acts as a backup date.
If the weather is that bad on the primary shoot day, we can switch to the backup date without too much hassle.
You can understand that a large company with so many employees cannot adjust its planning overnight.
Many appointments with customers are scheduled weeks, if not months in advance.
That's why we had to plan the final shoot date almost 3 months in advance. The reserve date was planned 2.5 weeks later. If you don't plan a reserve date, it will take about half a year after the request before everyone is available again. And I haven't even counted the construction holidays.
Location
Next we moved on to determining the location. Normally, providing the location is the responsibility of the client.
To a certain extent I can give tips in this. However, this job was so extensive that they themselves did not really know what a good location would be.
Just find a suitable place where you can put all these vehicles and employees. In their warehouse, the vehicles can all be stored, but not displayed for a big photo. That's why I offered them a professional location survey.
They immediately saw its importance and agreed to it.
When doing a professional site survey, the first thing I do is make a list of places where you can actually put all of these vehicles.
Scrolling through Google Maps, asking for tips via social media, but above all, letting your mind wander.
Once I have gathered enough inspiration and the list is ready, I will differentiate between the free and paid locations.
Free locations are often the places that are open 24/7 and accessible to everyone. Quotes are requested at paid locations.
In doing so, I make a risk analysis . What are the advantages, but especially the disadvantages, of certain places?
This means that with a paid location you are always 100% certain that the location is available.
With free spots it is possible that other vehicles are parked there. The disadvantage of a paid location is that the landlord is not always flexible when it rains and the shoot has to be moved. Double payment.
Other factors that play a role in the research include the incidence of light, travel distance, background and surface.
The latter can be quite a party pooper, we discovered.
Through a private individual I had come to a beautiful meadow with a view over the Heuvelland. A meadow that was large enough to accommodate all the vehicles. The client was enthusiastic and agreed to this location.
Disappointment
Unfortunately, the owner of the meadow called the day before the shoot; we could not use the location.
There had been too much rain in the previous week, and there was a high chance that vehicles would get stuck and have to be towed.
You can imagine how much this damages the meadow. We don't want that on our conscience. A big setback, but of course very understandable. Together with the client I decided to switch to the second location.
The day itself
Since this was a large parking lot on a busy industrial estate, it was far from certain that no other vehicles were parked there.
That's why I decided to be there myself from 6:45 in the morning, while the photo was only planned for 10:00. Thank God there was no other vehicle parked at the location that early.
About 20 minutes later, the first cars drove into the parking lot one by one. In total, I ordered an estimated 60 vehicles to park elsewhere and explained the reason.
Almost everyone understood this. It was great to see the massive cooperation of everyone.
After all the company vehicles had arrived, I clearly and multilingually instructed all employees what exactly they had to do.
Everyone had to drive to the other side of the square, after which I guided the vehicles one by one to their place with clear hand gestures.
The clear communication was followed up well. As a learned traffic controller I gradually realized how cool this actually was.
The whole picture came to an ecstasy. Because this project was not just about that one photo, but about all the preparation and coordination on site that went into it.
After taking the photo, I stood there for a while beaming with pride at the whole setting that attracted a lot of attention from passers-by.
A great example of what you can achieve with good collaboration. And the end result is so cool!
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