COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY · APETITO

Corporate Photography for apetito — Photographing the People and the Place

There is a temptation with corporate photography to concentrate on the obvious: a portrait, a meeting, perhaps a photograph of the building. But a business is rarely defined by one thing. It is the people, the conversations, the environment and hundreds of smaller details that together create its identity.

That was the thinking behind my photography for apetito. The company had created a beautifully considered working environment, combining contemporary meeting spaces, informal areas, displays and an impressive demonstration kitchen. My job was to photograph not simply how it looked, but how it felt when people were using it.

People first

I’ve spent more than 30 years photographing people professionally, and one thing has remained remarkably consistent: the best photographs usually happen when people stop thinking about the photographer.

Rather than making every situation formal, I prefer to give people enough direction to make them comfortable and then allow the interaction to take over. A conversation, a laugh between colleagues or two people concentrating on something together can often say considerably more about a company than a row of people looking into a camera.

There is still a place for a strong individual portrait, of course. The difference is that it doesn’t necessarily need to look like a traditional corporate headshot. Using the actual workplace as the background gives the photograph context and makes it part of the wider visual story.

A workplace with its own identity

The environment at apetito gave me plenty to work with. Strong yellow accents run through the interior alongside natural timber, contemporary furniture, books, display areas and clean architectural lines. It is unmistakably a working environment, but it has warmth and personality too.

That matters photographically. When a company has invested in creating a distinctive workplace, the surroundings shouldn’t become an anonymous background. They should become part of the photographs.

Wide photographs establish the space. Tighter photographs show people within it. Details provide punctuation between the two. Put those together and you begin to create something much more useful than a collection of isolated corporate photographs.

The kitchen at the heart of the story

For a food business, the demonstration kitchen was an important part of the photography. It is a particularly strong space visually, with warm timber, yellow shelving, pendant lighting and a large central island creating a natural focal point.

I photographed the kitchen both as an interior and with people in the space. The two approaches do different jobs. One records the design clearly; the other gives the room scale, purpose and life.

This mixture is something I now build into MGANE Studio commercial photography. Photograph the people, certainly, but also photograph where they work, what they use and the details that make that particular business recognisable.

Photographing work while it happens

Some of my favourite photographs from a corporate shoot are often the simplest ones. Someone on the telephone. Two people working through something together. A conversation over coffee. A meeting where nobody is paying much attention to the camera.

These photographs may appear straightforward, but commercially they’re enormously useful. They give a business genuine imagery for websites, LinkedIn, recruitment, presentations, internal communications, PR and social media without relying on generic stock photography.

It is why I increasingly think in terms of creating a library of business imagery rather than delivering a handful of hero photographs. A company communicates constantly now. The more varied the photography, the more useful that library becomes.

Spaces designed for people

The refurbished interiors also included areas designed for different ways of working: larger meeting rooms, quieter spaces for two people to sit together and informal environments where conversations can happen away from a conventional desk.

Photographing those areas without people gives a clear record of the design. Photographing people actually using them explains why the spaces exist. For me, a strong commercial shoot should do both.

The people who become part of a company’s history

My work with apetito has also included another project that I’ve always remembered: photographing people for their well-known wall celebrating colleagues who had retired from the company.

I liked the thinking behind it enormously. Companies naturally talk about growth and the future, but every established business has been shaped by the people who came before. Taking the time to recognise them says something about the culture of the organisation.

Perhaps that is also why I enjoy photographing businesses. Behind the branding, the buildings and the products, there are always people. They’re ultimately what gives a company its personality.

More than photographs for one day

The apetito shoot is a good example of what I believe corporate photography should achieve. Individual portraits, natural interactions, meetings, interiors and details all have different purposes, but visually they belong together.

Combined, they create a bank of original photography that can continue working across a business long after the camera has been packed away.

That remains the approach behind MGANE Studio: relaxed photography of real people and real workplaces, produced professionally and designed to be genuinely useful.

If your business has changed, your team has grown, you’ve refurbished your workplace or the photographs you’re currently using simply don’t represent you anymore, take a look at Services & Pricing or tell me what you’re planning.

MGANE Studio
Commercial photography, film and content for businesses across Somerset, Bath, Bristol and beyond.