NextGen is a telecommunications recruiter with offices in Chicago and San Diego. Like a lot of companies, the short description of what they do (helping staff telecom companies) doesn’t necessarily convey that they are a fun group of people with an awesome office environment. Branding photography, specifically photos that focus on illustrating the energy of a working environment are often overlooked in marketing. We see it time and time again on websites that use stock images instead of creating genuine images. Instead of photographing their actual office with their actual employees, some marketing departments purchase stock images. Although we’re somewhat biased, we personally feel that stock images lack authenticity.

Instead of taking a stock image route, NextGen brought us in to create custom content. We call these types of photos “company culture” photos (aka – environmental lifestyle). Although we also shot headshots with our mobile studio setup, we wanted this blog post to feature the company culture photos we shot for NextGen’s San Diego office location. And as a personal note, I’m pretty proud of that last photo. The idea of an office water cooler gossip photo may be a tad cliche, but when dramatically lit and exclusively featuring only bearded employees we really produced a winner!