Today we present our latest offer – smartportrait.

“Let’s take our business headshots with our smartphone!” More and more companies are thinking this. Perhaps you don’t have the budget for a professional photographer, or you want to avoid the hassle of scheduling appointments with all employees. Fair considerations.

In general, portraits taken with good smartphone cameras are a sensible solution for those on a budget. But! – it has to be done right. Because regardless of the camera used or who’s behind it, quality remains an essential factor for business portraits.

In a previous article or video, Boris already explored the question of whether you still need a professional photographer given the quality of today’s smartphone cameras. There, Boris also showed the differences in quality between a cell phone picture and a professional photo.

In principle, portraits with good smartphone cameras are a sensible solution for those on a budget. But! – it has to be done right. Because regardless of the camera used or who’s behind it, quality remains an essential factor for business portraits.

Smartphone Photos yes, but you Need to Know HOW

At this point we would like to introduce you to smartportrait : So that everything goes smoothly when taking portraits with your smartphone and you avoid the most common pitfalls.

Smartportrait is a service that allows you to create a business headshot of yourself wherever you are and whenever it suits you, using your smartphone. You will receive instructions on the correct use of lighting, posing tips and more, just as a professional photographer would provide if they were on-site. As soon as you are happy with your photo, you upload it and smartportrait takes care of all the image editing process. This means that your portrait will be retouched, cropped and placed against your desired background.

Voilà – and your business portrait is ready.

The smart way to portray your employees

What are the advantages of a smartportrait over a business portrait done by a professional?

As always, both options have their pros and cons. We’ll outline them below so you can make the right decision for yourself and your company.

Your most obvious advantage with smartportrait is that you can save money. It’s undoubtedly cheaper than having a photographer arrive, bring all the equipment, set up, give instructions and take the pictures. Having the entire company staff photographed can quickly can quickly strain the budget.

Smartportrait is practical and easy. You don’t need to invest in much equipment or be particularly tech-savvy. You can take your business headshot with a device that fits in your pocket. And to help you achieve a good result without much knowledge, smartportrait provides clear step-by-step instructions for lighting, positioning, background, and posing, illustrated with examples. These instructions are available in both video and text formats. There’s not much that can go wrong.

You can take unlimited pictures. Until you find one you like. If you are not so convinced by your photos on one day, you can take new ones on another day until you have found a favorite. This is of course not possible or rather difficult in the case of a professional photo shoot.

It also eliminates a certain amount of organizational effort. You don’t necessarily have to bring all or as many employees as possible together for a fixed photo shoot. Employees can take their photo remotely with smartportrait.

The fire and forget principle

Smartportrait then takes care of editing your photo. Retouching and cropping are carried out by real experts, not just by a computer. You also have a wide range of creative options when it comes to color and shape selection. You can decide whether you want a real background or a color of your choice for your portrait.

If you use smartportrait, you can be sure that you’ll end up with something that’s better than a smartphone selfie.

The advantages of professional business portraits with photographers

On the other hand, there are of course the benefits that only a professional shoot can offer.

A professional photographer brings years of experience. This is noticeable throughout the process until the finished product. Starting with discussing the image concept, where ideas and inputs from their vast wealth of experience are incorporated. Then there is, of course, the technical know-how. A professional knows how to set the light so that people look good in front of the camera. They master their camera as well as the post-processing of an image. Thus, they can guarantee that the image will look even better in the end than it does at the time the client looks at the computer.

Furthermore, a photographer conveys self-confidence and gives instructions on posing. So that even people who don’t like or don’t often stand in front of the camera can present themselves to advantage. Picking people up and giving them a good feeling during the shoot is a very important element in the work of a professional. It plays a key role in determining whether the customer is satisfied with the result afterwards.

Last but not least, we mention the “better camera”. On closer inspection, professional technical equipment is still far ahead of a smartphone camera. This is due, among other things, to the much larger sensor of a professional camera and the technically and qualitatively superior lenses. Nevertheless, the development of smartphone cameras is progressive and fast.

You need to ask yourself these individual questions:
👉 “Where do I use the photo?”
👉 “What are my quality requirements?”
👉 “What budget do I have available?”

Smartportrait is perfect for use on internal channels such as Slack, Teams or other collaborative platforms, on the team page of your homepage or for social media platforms.

However, when publishing an important press release, we would rely on the image from the professional.

For companies and individuals alike

Smartportrait is a good solution for budget-oriented individuals and companies. Thanks to the photo guide and professional retouching provided by smartportrait, you’ll be able to capture a photo with your smartphone that showcases you at your best.

What a smartphone cannot replace, in our view, is the experience of a photographer in the field of image composition and subsequent image optimization and dealing with people.