IT Professionals business portraits

A professional acquaintance asked me to shoot some business portraits. He developed a cool web-based app that lets you access your encrypted desktop from any device, any place in the world. I agreed to shoot for free just to get some experience. Please give me your serious constructive criticism and tips on how to improve them. These are practically SOOC, with some minor cropping and levels adjustments. I would have preferred to shoot at a time that the sunlight was coming into the windows, but it wasn't my call. Nikon D800, 70-200mm 2.8, Nikon speedlight shot into a diffusing umbrella, and a Mecablitz 52 bouncing off the ceiling for fill flash. In the last two shots, the fill flash was set up in the lobby to light up the background, and a reflector was hanging off a light stand to the right of the subjects.

In one pic, as a joke for these Apple maniacs, I used PS to change the logo on their laptop to "TRS-80" in honor of the old Radio Shack PC.

If these were my results I would be very pleased. The one thing that bothers me is, for "business portraits" the guy in the t-shirt just doesn't exude professionalism or business. Maybe he's going for the Silicon Valley feel. I don't know. But that's not really your call.

I like the shots. Well done!!!

PapaST said:

The one thing that bothers me is, for "business portraits" the guy in the t-shirt just doesn't exude professionalism or business. Maybe he's going for the Silicon Valley feel. I don't know. But that's not really your call.

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Thank you, and you are correct... it was not my call. The guy with the collar is actually the boss, and he made a comment about his employee's attire, but he accepted it as "California" oriented (since the guy literally came here directly from San Francisco). He even said that Cisco never had a mandatory footwear rule until they had over 500 employees.

I literally offered to let the creative guy wear my shirt for a few photos, but they declined.

Nice shots, but the T shirt (at the minimum he should be wearing a polo shirt for the shot) is killing it if they would be using the photos for a website to promote a professional company. Just my .02

Great photos, good exposure, shadows look good, color looks good.

HATE number two! He looks ridiculous. But as far as what you could control, that shot is too close for my liking. Too much of a big head. However, as I look at the other guy that knows how to groom himself, it might work.

Nice photos.

Moab Man said:

Great photos, good exposure, shadows look good, color looks good.

HATE number two! He looks ridiculous. But as far as what you could control, that shot is too close for my liking. Too much of a big head. However, as I look at the other guy that knows how to groom himself, it might work.

Nice photos.

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Good summary - my thoughts align. Great looking shots.
I'm not a fan of the shirt selection either

Nice job, my comments regarding the t shirt pretty much follow the group...

Pat in GA