CHICAGOCORPORATEHEADSHOTS
Executive portraits for senior professionals — photographed around how you need to be perceived in the room you're trying to enter, not how everyone else gets photographed.
Chicago corporate headshots are professional portraits for executives and senior professionals — used on company websites, LinkedIn, board pages, investor materials, and press. The session fee is $500 and includes a private online gallery; individual images are $250 each, fully retouched and licensed for your own promotional use, in studio or on-location. 312 Elements is led by photographer Michael Schacht, who has photographed 10,000+ people over 16 years, including executives at Mastercard, Hyatt, United Airlines, Salesforce, and Bain & Company. Booking for a whole team? Group sessions start at $1,200.
See pricing and book a session at headshot pricing and booking.
A headshot used to be a box to check. Now it's the whole point.
How you need to be perceived depends on the room
There's no single "executive look." The read that lands you a board seat is not the read that closes a deal is not the read that wins over a room of skeptics. The work is figuring out which one you need — and that starts before the camera comes out.
Executive Headshots
The controlled smile is the whole game at this altitude. A big, warm, customer-service smile works wonders in client-facing roles — and quietly caps you below the senior-leadership line, because it reads as eager rather than in charge. A smaller, contained expression signals competence without tipping into cold. The higher you go, the more restraint reads as authority.
Law Firm Headshots
Litigators and deal lawyers need opposite reads. One has to signal you do not want to face me across a table. The other has to signal I will get this closed, quietly. Same suit, same lighting, opposite message — and the difference is entirely in the direction. A photographer who shoots every lawyer the same way is serving one of them and failing the other.
Private Equity Headshots
Discretion over polish. The read that works here isn't look how successful I am — it's I can be trusted with information you can't un-share. That's a quieter, harder thing to photograph than wealth, and it's the difference between looking like the client and looking like the person the client confides in.
Consulting Headshots
You have to be granted authority the moment you walk into a room full of executives who are skeptical of consultants on principle. The frame that's visibly selling something loses that room instantly. The read is steady, strategic, already-credible — someone worth listening to before they've opened their mouth.
Tech Sector Headshots
Seniority reads differently in tech, and there are two traps. Photograph too casually and you read as junior. Photograph too corporately and you read as out of touch — the stiffness that signals you don't belong in the room you're actually leading. The target is authority without the starch.
Board Members Headshots
Your portrait runs in proxy statements and annual reports, beside people who have been CEOs. It has to hold its own in that company without straining for it. Gravitas is the entire assignment — the unhurried confidence of someone who has nothing left to prove.
How an executive session works
- 1
The conversation first
Before anything else, we talk about the rooms you're walking into and how you need to be read in them. This is the part that makes the rest work — and it's the part a convention photographer skips entirely. Wardrobe guidance follows from it; text me photos of what you're considering and I'll weigh in before you pack.
- 2
Studio or your office
Executive sessions run in the West Loop studio, or on-location at your office when that's easier on your calendar. Directed the entire time — no being left to guess what your face is doing — with on-screen review as we go, so you're never wondering whether we got it.
- 3
Delivery
At the end of the session we review your private online gallery together, and you choose the images you want at $250 each. Every image you purchase comes fully retouched, sized for web, LinkedIn, board pages, print, and press, with an unlimited promotional-use license. Rush turnaround is available for time-critical needs like a funding announcement or a press release.
What Chicago executives say
In my industry, your photo is a trust signal before a client ever agrees to meet with you. My previous headshots were technically fine but completely generic, and generic in this field reads as undifferentiated. The new images project confidence and discretion rather than polish, which is a harder thing to photograph.
Lisa H.
Private Wealth Advisor
I'd recently joined two advisory boards and my existing headshot was a conference candid that was completely wrong for the board bios, publication bylines, and speaking programs I was now appearing in. What I needed was something that communicated strategic leadership — the visual vocabulary is different in tech, and most photographers don't make that distinction.
Ryan C.
VP of Product
My publisher had very specific technical requirements, and I simultaneously needed images for my speaker kit, website, and press materials — contexts with genuinely different visual demands. Both sets of images came out exactly right, and Michael understood the difference between looking authoritative and looking approachable in a way that most people I'd worked with before simply didn't.
Carolyn M.
Keynote Speaker & Author
Read more in our full collection of client reviews.
What's included, and what images cost
- A $500 session fee covering the shoot itself: directed the whole way, with the wardrobe changes and backgrounds you need and no clock on the room
- A pre-session conversation about how you need to be perceived (the part that actually determines the shot)
- Studio session in the West Loop, or on-location at your office
- A private online gallery you review with me at the end, to choose your images from
- Images purchased individually at $250 each: fully retouched (honest retouching that keeps you looking like you on your best day), licensed for unlimited promotional use, and delivered in web and high-resolution print files
Built for senior professionals
- 16+ years
- photographing Chicago's corporate ranks — startups to the Fortune 500
- 10,000+ people
- photographed for clients including Mastercard, Hyatt, United Airlines, Salesforce, and Bain
- $500
- executive session fee, with individual images at $250 each
- 1 week
- rush turnaround available for the images you purchase
Frequently asked questions about corporate headshots
- Do I need to bring the whole suit, or is it just waist-up?
- Waist-up, almost always — so no, don't worry about shoes, and we're not photographing your hem. But bring the jacket, and bring the one that fits, not the one you like most. A blazer that pulls at the shoulder or gaps at the button reads as borrowed even waist-up, and the camera is unkind to a bad fit in a way the mirror forgives. If the jacket that fits is boring, boring photographs better than ill-fitting every time. Bring two or three tops underneath and we'll build a couple of looks from the combinations.
- Should I wear my watch?
- A watch is a signal, and the same watch says opposite things in different rooms. Wear it, and in finance, private equity, or law it reads as someone who's arrived and is fluent in the room. Leave it off, and you read as someone whose substance doesn't need accessorizing — exactly right for a founder selling authenticity or a consultant who needs the client to feel like the smartest person in the conversation. Same watch, opposite outcomes. Which one is yours depends on the room you're walking into, so bring it, we'll shoot a few frames both ways, and decide together once I understand who needs to be looking at this.
- I wear glasses every day — in the shot or not?
- Glasses on: you look like the person who actually walks into the meeting, and that recognizability is worth a lot. Glasses off: cleaner eyes, no glare to fight, a little more timeless. The door I usually steer people toward is both — glasses are a thirty-second change, and having the option means the shot can flex to where it's used. What I'd push back on is going without them because you think you look better that way when you never actually take them off. The headshot that doesn't match the person is the one that quietly costs you.
- How do I pick a tie that won't look dated in two years?
- The thing that dates a tie is trend. Skinny widths, novelty patterns, anything of-the-moment reads as a timestamp the second the moment passes. Go with a solid or the smallest possible texture and it stays quiet for years. Go bold and you've made a statement with a short shelf life — fine if the shot is for this season's campaign, risky if it's going on the leadership page and living there until you're promoted. Bring two, plus a backup. And if you don't wear a tie daily, you probably don't need one at all.
- Can I knock this out over a lunch break?
- Depends what you want to walk away with. If you need one clean, current shot and you arrive ready, yes — that's doable inside an hour, and plenty of executives do exactly that. If you want range — a couple of looks, a warmer frame and a more serious one — give it more room. Energy shows up on camera, and the rushed-back-to-a-meeting version of you is visible in the frame. I'd rather you block the time than spend the money and look like you were watching the clock.
- Can I use these on LinkedIn, the company site, and a slide deck — or do I need different shots?
- One strong shot covers all three. Every image you purchase carries a license for unlimited promotional use, so the same image goes on LinkedIn, the bio page, the deck, the conference program, the press release — no per-use fees, no asking permission. The only reason to buy more than one look is range, not rights: a warmer frame for the speaker bio, a more straightforward one for the board page. But a single great frame used everywhere is also how you become recognizable, which is the whole point.
- I'm trying to book headshots for my whole team — is this the right page?
- Different conversation, and there's a better page for it. Team and group sessions run on their own logistics — matched lighting across every face, on-location setup, new-hire matching down the road — and they start at $1,200. Head to our team and group headshots page and we'll scope it from there.
Explore other Chicago headshot services
Ready to be remembered?
The executive session fee is $500 and includes your shoot and a private online gallery; images are $250 each. See full pricing and grab a session date, or, if you're booking a team, head to team and group headshots.
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