Our New York headshot photographers love a good grey background. It is, by far, the most popular background choice by our clients. It is universally flattering and almost everyone looks good against it in their corporate headshot photography. It is also the most neutral place to start thinking about creative choices. When you start with grey you can, next, start to think about how to differentiate your images.

Grey for Corporate Headshots - So Many Choices

Let's take a moment to appreciate all of these wonderful options grey has to offer. First there is the wide range of grey – light, dark, cool, warm. Then there is the idea of dimension - flat, textured, etc. There is so much to consider for our business photographers trying to get our clients just the right look!

If a client is looking for the most neutral option from their New York business photographer, we recommend going with 18% grey. What does this mean? It is based on reflection of light. On the spectrum between the reflection of light from white to black it is exactly in the middle. Thus middle of the road. Neutral. The Switzerland of grey, if you will.

White shirts and colorful dresses pop off of this grey. Black clothing can easily separate from this grey. All skin tones look good. Frankly, if you have a corporate headshot photographer that knows how to setup a light, it is very hard to go wrong with an 18% grey background.

Here are a few examples of how our New York corporate headshot photographers worked on that very very neutral grey.

What about texture? If you are looking to jazz up your grey a bit, why not consider a grey with some texture. This can be achieved through exposure or, through the type of grey background you are using.

Here is an example of a background where our New York business photographer chose to integrate the subtle texture of the background paper.

Here is an example of a painted background that is painted to give it real texture. This background artist used a variety of greys, layering them to create variation across the background. It is still grey, but the difference is significant. There is much more dimension to the background.

White That Is Grey

Now here is one that might really flip your brain around. Sometimes a subject can be photographed against a grey background, but it reads as grey. Here is a great example of that. This corporate headshot was photographed on white, but the result is a gradient grey background.

I know. Take a second to absorb that.

You can see that the center is brighter and as the eye moves out to the edges, it gets more grey. There is no true white on this photo even though it was photographed on white.

Grey With a Dash Of Color

Finally, and this is for the advanced color geeks in our audience (raising my hand here), grey can shift from red to green to blue tones and everything in between. There are so many factors that can create a color tone or color shift in an image. There can be some kind of ambient lighting (room light) that casts a tone. Lights have a color temperature measured by kelvins. You know, when you goto the hardware store to pickup a light bulb you will choose between cool white, daylight, warm light, etc.

This is something that the business headshot photographer can make happen on-site with his/her lighting choices. Often the headshot photographer or retoucher will make additional enhancements in the post-production (post- corporate headshot shoot) in Photoshop or another editing software. This happens if the client needs the tone of the photos to match other elements of the company branding materials. It is a common edit request and something that can really create better cohesion in the overall look of a website or other branding items.

So, as you can see, grey is more than just grey. While we love that 18% neutral and appreciate the consistency and beauty it provides for every subject, it's fun to see the wide range of opportunities inside this color family.

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