Our New York corporate headshot photographers at The Booth are ready to take some photos! We have had some clients come to us over the last few months, but, in general, our workload has been pretty light.

Of course it has. Until recently the idea of working shoulder to shoulder with colleagues you have known for, potentially, years was a non-issue. Now, it seems like every living body, including those same colleagues, could present the threat of COVID-19. You imagine everyone you know, with their kids in school 2 days/week, visiting Trader Joe's, stopping by the local deli, bringing their packages in from the outside without spray disinfecting… We are no longer people to each other. We are anthropomorphized Coronavirus walking around on 2 legs.

Around here, we err on the cautious side of things. But we are also practical and very interested in knowing more about how we can serve our clients and mitigate risk. Like everyone, we have spent the last several months paying attention to new information and thinking about how to adjust ourselves for safe and successful interactions with others. Somehow, life goes on.

And, thankfully, our photography has gone on as well. We are starting to shoot more and wanted to offer an update, full of the learnings over the last few months of how we are doing this safely.

Photography, used to be a far more social and chatty experience for us and our clients. We would talk to our subjects, ask a few questions and take some time to get them comfortable. We might make a joke, play around, have some fun. We were always mindful of time in order to keep a schedule or not to keep others in the line moving. We had plenty of structure, but it was, again to make sure the wheels were spinning properly and on time.

Now everything has shifted around a central theme: COVID-19. You are still going to feel welcome and we will continue to enjoy meeting you and putting you at ease. But now, our primary focus, first and foremost, is using what we know to stay safe: We plan, we shoot, we setup our equipment and we interact with the subject with COVID-19 in mind. We are constantly taking into account how we can best mitigate risk to our subjects and to our super conscientious and talented New York business photographers.

We published a blog post several months ago about what COVID-19 precautions we are taking. It is all still very relevant, but we wanted to share how, now that we know more about the virus, we are accommodating clients.

The most important thing we our watching out for is the significant airborne spread of the virus. Yes, we will continue to clean surfaces, but our focus will be on how to create a well-ventilated environment where air circulates and plenty of distance can be maintained among participants. We open windows, we install intake and exhaust fans and free-standing fans that will keep things moving around.

We are also well-aware that risk goes down when we spend less time together. Visits should be kept to a 2hr maximum, says one recent study published in Fast Company. Good thing for you, we need way less time than that to get a fabulous headshot. Right now, for our in-studio headshots we are keeping headshot sessions to 30min or less. The same is happening when we visit offices in the city.

As for distancing, it is still a 6' minimum between you and your executive headshot photographer. We are choosing the right lights, lenses and other equipment that can allow us to shoot a photo from that distance. If any of you have had your photo taken by Ian Londin, you will know that he can get well within the 2-3 feet distance from his subject. Not anymore.

At our studio our equipment is positioned in a way that the photographer and subject will not have to cross paths at any point. We position the background in a location where the subject can easily walk in and out without sharing space with our photographer. Here is a diagram of how the setup looks in our studio.

Planning and implementation for Covid protection is a little different when we are working in a client's office. If it is an existing client we will probably know the space fairly well. We might ask the client for a more open location or we might suggest a spot that could allow for more distance and better airflow. If it is a new client, we will ask for scouting photos of the space. This is a fancy way of asking our client to click 5-10 iphone photos of the space so we can get a sense of how big it is, where the ventilation points are and how we can set up our equipment to create the least possible interaction.

Is there still a risk to how we operate? Of course. But we are trying to be smart. We are reading everything we can about being together, about how to position air purifiers, how much time we can be together and more. We are waiting for the next bit of news to come out and tell us what we should be looking out for next. We are keeping new products in mind that can help mitigate.

Would I put our team or our clients at any major risk to take a headshot photo? No. But we are willing and able to carry on and make some great photos for our clients limiting the risk and keeping everyone as safe as possible.