312 Elements PhotographyPRICING
Corporate executive in navy suit photographed across four headshot variations with studio lighting, by 312 Elements Headshot Photography, Chicago, IL

CHICAGO
CORPORATE
HEADSHOTS

Chicago corporate headshots for executives and senior professionals — photographed around how you need to be perceived in the room you're trying to enter, not how everyone else gets photographed.

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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 Chicago corporate photographer Michael Schacht, who has photographed 10,000+ people over 17 years (since 2009), including executives at Mastercard, Hyatt, United Airlines, Salesforce, and Bain & Company. Booking for a whole team? Team sessions start at $1,200.

See pricing and book a session at headshot pricing and booking.

Are corporate headshots worth it?

Editorial executive portrait photographed on-location, by 312 Elements Headshot Photography, Chicago, IL
Yes, when the headshot has a job to do. It's usually the first thing a client, recruiter, board, or reporter sees before they meet you, and it runs everywhere at once: the leadership page, LinkedIn, the pitch deck, the press release. A free headshot checks the box. A paid one is worth it only if it changes how you're read. A headshot used to be a box to check. Now it's the whole point. In 2016, a corporate headshot was a formality — a LinkedIn photo that maybe ended up on the company site. In 2026, you can get a free one at a convention, and your company probably has a guy with a camera. The box-check is everywhere and it's nearly free. Which means the only reason left to actually hire someone is the part that was always the real value: perception. People don't sit in my chair because they need a headshot. They sit down because they want to be remembered — and because they understand they're a brand whether they like it or not, and they'd rather manage that perception than leave it to chance. That's the entire job here, and it's the part a convention backdrop can't do. It's also what separates the headshots Chicago companies put on their leadership pages from the free ones. Recent executive sessions include International Housewares Association trade-show leader Adrienne Tiritilli and Thoma Bravo general counsel Steven Schwab.

What is an executive headshot?

An executive headshot is a corporate headshot made for someone whose photo represents the company, not only themselves: the CEO and C-suite, partners, general counsel, board members. It is held to a higher standard because it runs in higher-stakes places, and because the read it has to deliver (authority, discretion, credibility) is narrower. Every session for executive headshots in Chicago starts with one question: who needs to trust this person, and what will they be looking for when they see the photo?

Where executive headshots get used

The same portrait usually has to work in six places at once: the company leadership page, LinkedIn, investor and pitch decks, annual reports and proxy statements, press releases and media kits, and conference or speaker programs. One file has to hold up as a thumbnail and as a printed annual-report portrait without a second shoot.

When do executives need a new headshot?

About 75% of executive headshot sessions are reactive rather than proactive. The three most common triggers: a feature in a publication like Forbes, a conference speaking slot, and a company press release. By then the deadline is days away. The better plan is to update when something changes: your hair, your weight, your role, or your look. The uptick in GLP-1 medications has put a lot of executives in my chair for exactly that reason. If nothing has changed, 18 months is a sensible fallback clock. The headshot to replace is the one that no longer matches the person who walks into the meeting.

How executive headshots change by role and industry

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.

C-Suite and Senior Leadership 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 Member 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 headshot session works

  1. 1

    The pre-session conversation about perception

    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. 2

    West Loop studio or on-location at your office

    Executive sessions run in my West Loop studio at 212 N. Sangamon, 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. 3

    Choosing, retouching, and delivering your images

    Before the session ends, we sit down and review the images together. You mark your favorites, and if anything's missing, we keep shooting. Your private online gallery, usually 300 to 600 frames, is up within 24 hours, and you choose the images you want. Every image you purchase comes fully retouched and sized for web, LinkedIn, board pages, print, and press, and arrives 7 days after you make your selection. For time-critical needs like a funding announcement or a press release, rush delivery takes 24 hours.

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.

LH

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.

RC

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.

CM

Carolyn M.

Keynote Speaker & Author

Read more in my full collection of client reviews.

How much do corporate headshots cost in Chicago?

A corporate headshot with me is a $500 session fee plus $250 for each image you choose, so one image brings the total to $750 and three bring it to $1,250. Every session is bespoke, which is why everything is à la carte: you pay for the shoot once, then buy only the images you'll use.

  • The session itself: directed the whole way, with the wardrobe changes and backgrounds you need and no time limit
  • 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 anywhere within Chicago city limits for a $500 on-location fee
  • A private online gallery you review with me at the end, to choose your images from
  • Each image you choose: 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
  • Optional: a hair and makeup artist, $300
  • Optional: 24-hour rush delivery for $100 per image

A deposit reserves your session time. Mall studios and pharmacy photo counters will always cost less; what they are built to do is produce a usable photo quickly, not spend time on how you need to be perceived.

Booking for a leadership team or a whole department? Team headshots start at $1,200. Full individual pricing is on the headshot pricing page.

Chicago corporate photographer for leadership and company portraits

I'm Michael Schacht, a Chicago corporate photographer. I've been photographing people professionally since 2009 and opened my West Loop studio in January 2010. My corporate photography in Chicago is about people: executive headshots, portraits for leadership pages, board and annual-report portraits, on-location portraits at your office, team headshots that match across a whole company, and workplace lifestyle photography of your people at work in your own space. I don't cover corporate events. The work runs from startups to the Fortune 500: executives at Mastercard, Hyatt, United Airlines, Salesforce, Bain, and Thoma Bravo; exclusive work with UChicago Booth and Northwestern Kellogg; vendor-program work with Northwestern University and UIC; attorneys at Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, Mayer Brown, and McDermott Will & Emery; and physicians with Northwestern Medicine Physician Network, University of Chicago Medicine, and Advocate Medical Group.

What to look for in a corporate headshot photographer

Look at a full portfolio, not one hero image, and check whether the people in it look different from each other or all get the same treatment. Ask whether the photographer directs your expression or waits for it to happen. Ask whether you will see images on screen during the session, so you are never guessing. Ask what the retouching looks like; you should still look like yourself. And get the price and the usage license in writing before you book, so you know what you can do with the images without paying again.

Where to get corporate headshots in Chicago

You can get corporate headshots in Chicago at my studio at 212 N. Sangamon Street, Studio 4B, in the West Loop at Lake and Sangamon, or on-location at your office. The Morgan station on the Green and Pink Lines is steps from the door, and there is valet parking across the street at the Equinox, 201 N. Sangamon. The studio's full bathroom is a private changing room, and there's a steamer for anything that wrinkled on the way over. For anyone working in the Loop, Fulton Market, or River North, "corporate headshots near me" means a short trip to Lake and Sangamon, or no trip at all, since the session can come to your office.

Office headshots, photographed at your workplace

Office headshots are corporate headshots taken at your workplace instead of a studio. I bring the lighting and backdrop to your office and photograph you there, so the session fits between meetings instead of around a commute. The direction, the retouching, and the licensing are the same as a studio session. There's no minimum room size. The setup depends on the space: a well-lit office with floor-to-ceiling windows may need a single light or none at all, while a basement changes the plan quickly. Office headshots make the most sense for an executive with a packed calendar, for a few leaders who need matching portraits, or when you want the office itself in the frame: a lobby, a window line, a boardroom. For a full department or company roster, team headshots are the better fit.

What makes a good corporate headshot?

A good corporate headshot looks like you on your best day and says the one thing your audience needs to believe about you. Technically, that means flattering light, sharp eyes, a jacket that fits, and a background suited to where the image will run. What separates a good corporate headshot from a forgettable one is expression: the right amount of warmth for your role, directed until it is there rather than hoped for. That is the part of the session I spend the most time on.

What makes a corporate headshot look unprofessional?

Most unprofessional headshots fail in one of five ways: the photo is cropped from an event or vacation shot; the light is flat, or harsh enough to carve shadows under the eyes; the background is a cluttered office or a wall of glare; the clothes don't fit or date the image; or the retouching goes so far that the person no longer looks like themselves. The subtler failure is a photo that is technically fine and completely generic. For a senior role, a photo that could be anyone's quietly suggests you could be anyone.

Should you smile in a corporate headshot?

Usually yes, but how much depends on the role. A full, warm smile works for client-facing roles where approachability is the job. As you move toward senior leadership, a smaller, contained expression reads as more in charge; the C-suite section above explains why. I direct a range of expressions, from warm to serious, so the choice is made looking at real frames instead of guessing.

Can AI or ChatGPT make a corporate headshot?

AI can make an image that resembles you; it cannot make a photograph of you. AI headshot generators and ChatGPT build a new face from your selfies, and small errors in the eyes, teeth, hairline, or glasses can slip through. For an executive, that is a real risk: the first person who meets you after seeing the photo notices the gap, and a portrait meant to build trust starts working against it. Corporate headshots that run on leadership pages, in annual reports, and in press materials need to be a real photograph of the real person.

Built for senior professionals

17 years
of corporate photography in Chicago — 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
24 hours
rush delivery for the images you purchase, $100 per image

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 I'm 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?

In the shot. If you wear glasses every day, you should absolutely have a headshot with them on — you look like the person who actually walks into the meeting, and that recognizability is worth a lot. Glare is my problem, not yours: anti-reflective lenses help, and advanced retouching usually fixes whatever reflection remains. If you want a frame without them too, glasses are a thirty-second change. 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. These days it's mostly bankers, politicians, and attorneys who spend time in a courtroom who still wear one.

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. There's no time limit on a session; it runs as long as it takes. Most people run out of steam around 90 minutes, experienced clients sometimes go to about 150, and no session has passed two and a half hours.

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.

What should I avoid wearing for a corporate headshot?

Avoid anything that pulls attention off your face or dates the photo: small, tight patterns like fine stripes, houndstooth, or small checks, which can shimmer on screen; neon or heavily saturated colors that cast color onto your skin; big logos; very shiny fabrics; and anything that doesn't fit, especially a jacket that pulls at the shoulders or the button. Solids and subtle textures in mid-to-dark tones are the safe choice. Bring two or three options and I'll help you pick under the lights.

What backgrounds can I choose from?

There's no fixed color menu. I set up natural vignettes around the open-floorplan loft for a less staged look, and I have a collection of hand-painted backdrops and studio paper. Your wardrobe informs the background, so the choice usually follows what you're wearing. If you have a specific background in mind, like a color that matches your company's leadership page, tell me ahead of time so it's ready.

What's the best pose for an executive headshot?

Usually a slight turn of the shoulders away from the camera, with your face turned back toward the lens, chin forward and a little down, and shoulders relaxed. It reads as more at ease than squaring up to the camera. Seated or standing depends on where the image will run and how you carry yourself. Every session is bespoke, so any framing you need, a 3/4 shot included, is yours on request. I direct the pose the entire time.

I hate being photographed. Will this work for me?

You don't have to be good at this; that's my job. The session is directed the entire time, so you're never left guessing what your face is doing, and you see the images on screen as we go, so you know when we've got it. Most of the tension in a headshot comes from not knowing what to do. Take that away and the person who shows up in the frame is the one your colleagues already know.

Is hair and makeup available for a corporate headshot session?

Yes. A hair and makeup artist can be booked with your session and covers a full face of makeup plus hair touch-ups; book it when you schedule so the artist is there when you arrive. The price is in the list above.

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 sessions are built for matched lighting across every face and new-hire matching down the road, and they start at $1,200. Head to my team and group headshots page to book.

Explore other Chicago headshot services

Executive corporate headshots on neutral backgrounds, by 312 Elements Headshot Photography, Chicago, IL

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Every session is built around how you need to be read. 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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