Team Photography That Doesn't Look Awkward: Natural, Relaxed Group Photos for Businesses

Almost every business I photograph starts the conversation with a version of the same sentence: "We just don't want it to look like a corporate line-up." I know exactly what they mean. Everyone has seen the photo — a row of colleagues standing shoulder to shoulder in a beige meeting room, arms folded or hanging awkwardly, smiles that were held for three seconds too long, lighting that flattens everyone into the same grey-green tone. It is a genre of photograph that companies keep commissioning and then quietly stop using because nobody actually likes how they look in it. Team photography does not have to work that way. Done properly, it produces images that people are happy to have on LinkedIn, that a company is proud to put on its careers page, and that actually look like the group of people who work together, rather than a group of strangers assembled for an HR requirement.

Why Team Photos Usually Go Wrong

The awkwardness in most team photography comes from a small number of predictable causes, and understanding them is most of the battle. The first is time pressure: a photographer is given fifteen minutes with fourteen people who all have somewhere else to be, so the fastest option — line everyone up, count to three, done — wins by default. The second is direction, or the lack of it. Being told to "just look natural" is one of the least natural instructions a human being can be given, and most people respond to it by stiffening rather than relaxing. The third is that most people, quite reasonably, do not enjoy being photographed and are self-conscious about it, and if nothing is done to address that discomfort in the room, it shows up in every frame.

None of these are unsolvable problems. They are solved by giving the session enough time to breathe, by directing people toward something to actually do rather than a static pose, and by creating an atmosphere in the room that takes the pressure off. That is the whole job, really — not a secret camera trick, just planning and people skills applied deliberately to a situation that usually gets neither.

What a Relaxed Team Session Actually Looks Like

A session I run for a company team typically has three distinct parts. The first is the formal group shot — yes, it still exists, because there is a genuine use for a clean, well-lit photo of the whole team together on a website's "About Us" page or in an annual report. But even that shot benefits enormously from small adjustments: staggered heights rather than a flat line, people angled slightly toward each other rather than square to the camera, and genuine micro-interactions between colleagues rather than everyone independently facing forward. It takes maybe five extra minutes and the difference in the final image is substantial.

The second part is candid working shots — people at their desks, in a real meeting (or a recreation of one that looks exactly like a real one), walking and talking in a corridor, at a whiteboard. These are the images that actually communicate what it is like to work somewhere, which is precisely what a careers page or a recruitment campaign needs. I shoot these with a longer lens from a slight distance so people forget the camera is there within a few minutes, rather than a wide lens two feet from their face that keeps the self-consciousness alive the whole time.

The third part, and often the one that produces the best individual and small-group images, is simply photographing people during natural breaks — the coffee run, the walk outside, the moment two colleagues are genuinely laughing about something unrelated to the shoot. I build in time for this rather than treating it as a bonus, because it consistently produces the most usable, most human images of the whole session.

How I Direct a Group Without Making Anyone Cringe

Direction is the difference between a stiff photo and a relaxed one, and good direction rarely sounds like direction at all. Instead of "smile," I ask people a genuine question — something about a recent project, a joke about the meeting room they're standing in, anything that produces a real reaction rather than a performed one. Instead of "stand still," I give people something to do with their hands and bodies: walk toward me and stop, lean on a desk, turn to talk to the person next to them. Movement almost always photographs better than a held pose, because it produces natural posture and expression rather than the slightly frozen quality that comes from someone consciously holding still for a camera.

For larger teams, I also work the group in smaller clusters before or after the full group shot — departments, project teams, people who actually sit near each other day to day. These smaller groupings are far easier to direct naturally because the dynamic between four or five people who know each other well is already relaxed, and that ease carries through into the images. I then have a mix of full-team and smaller-group content, which gives a company far more flexibility in how they use the photos afterwards than a single formal group shot ever could.

One thing I am always honest with clients about: I cannot manufacture chemistry that isn't there. What I can do is create the conditions — time, space, low pressure, genuine interaction — in which the chemistry a team already has is visible on camera instead of suppressed by nerves. If your team genuinely likes working together, that will show. My job is to get out of the way of it, not to fake it if it is not there.

Choosing a Location: Office, Outdoors, or Somewhere In Between

Where you shoot matters as much as how you direct the group. An office interior is often the obvious choice, and it has real advantages — it is authentic, it is convenient, and it shows the actual environment a team works in, which matters for recruitment content. The challenge with offices is lighting: overhead fluorescent panels and mixed colour temperatures from monitors and windows can produce flat, unflattering results if not handled carefully, which is a large part of why so many office team photos look worse than they need to. I bring portable lighting for exactly this reason and scout the space in advance wherever possible to identify the spots with the best natural light, usually near large windows in the late morning.

Outdoor locations near the office — a courtyard, a nearby green space, even a stretch of pavement with interesting architecture behind it — often produce the most relaxed images of the whole session, simply because stepping outside changes the energy of a group. People loosen up when they leave the building, even for ten minutes. For companies in and around Cambridge, I frequently combine an indoor working-shots segment with a short outdoor segment nearby, which gives a genuinely varied set of images rather than everything looking like it was taken in the same corner of the same meeting room.

For companies without a strong architectural backdrop of their own, or those who want images that feel a little more elevated than the office car park, a nearby park, a stretch of the river, or one of Cambridge's more photogenic streets can work well for a portion of the session, particularly for leadership team photos intended for a website's About page rather than day-to-day culture content.

Practical Advice for Preparing Your Team

The single most useful thing a company can do before a team session is to tell people what to expect, honestly. Not "smile for the camera," but something closer to: we are doing a mix of a group shot and some natural working photos, it will take about half an hour, and you do not need to do anything except be yourself. People who arrive braced for an ordeal photograph tensely; people who arrive understanding it will be quick and low-pressure generally relax within the first few minutes.

On clothing, I generally recommend people wear what they would normally wear to work rather than dressing up specially, unless the company has a specific brand look it wants reflected — a particular colour palette, for instance, which can look genuinely sharp in a full-team shot if it is not too rigidly enforced. Avoid asking everyone to wear identical branded t-shirts unless that is a deliberate stylistic choice you actually want, since it tends to read as more staged than natural, which somewhat defeats the purpose.

Timing matters more than most companies expect. Late morning, after the initial rush of the day but before lunchtime hunger sets in, tends to produce the most relaxed, highest-energy results. Avoid the last hour before a major deadline or straight after a difficult meeting — obvious in hindsight, but easy to overlook when a shoot is being squeezed into an already busy calendar. If your team works hybrid, I try to schedule around the days when the most people are naturally in the office, rather than asking remote staff to come in specifically for photos, which tends to produce a slightly performative atmosphere.

What You Actually Get, and How to Use It

From a typical team session I deliver a mixed set of images: the formal full-group shot in at least one or two variations, smaller department or project-team groupings, candid working shots, and any individual portraits captured along the way. This variety is deliberate — a careers page needs different imagery from a boardroom wall, and an annual report needs different imagery again from a LinkedIn post announcing a new hire. Companies I work with regularly reuse this same set of images across their website, recruitment materials, social media, and internal communications for months afterwards, which makes the cost per usable image considerably lower than it first appears when you are only thinking about a single upcoming need.

If your business is also looking for polished individual headshots alongside the team content, it is usually efficient to combine both in a single visit rather than booking two separate sessions — I'll typically build a short individual slot into the same day for anyone who needs an updated profile photo while the setup and lighting are already in place. Pricing for team sessions depends on team size, number of locations, and how much candid coverage you want alongside the formal shots, and I'm always happy to talk through the shape of a shoot before quoting rather than working from a fixed package that might not fit your actual team.

A Few Common Questions

How long does a team session take? For a group of up to around fifteen people, thirty to forty-five minutes is usually enough for a formal shot plus candid coverage. Larger teams, multiple locations, or additional individual headshots will extend that.

Do we need to do anything before you arrive? Not really — I scout locations and plan lighting in advance where possible. The main thing that helps is having a rough idea of who will actually be present on the day, since availability among busy teams shifts constantly.

Can you shoot during working hours without disrupting the day too much? Yes, and most sessions are designed exactly around that constraint. A well-planned team shoot should feel like a brief, pleasant interruption, not an event people need to prepare for or dread.

What if some of the team can't be there on the day? I can usually schedule a short additional slot for anyone missing, either on a separate visit or folded into another shoot for the same company, so the final set feels complete rather than visibly incomplete.

Good team photography is really just an extension of good photography generally: pay attention to light, give people time and a genuine reason to relax, and photograph what is actually there rather than forcing a pose that isn't. I'm Yana Skakun, a Cambridge-based photographer available for corporate and team sessions across the UK, and I'd be glad to talk through what your business actually needs before recommending anything. You can see more about how I approach my work on the about page, browse general pricing information, or simply get in touch to discuss a session for your team.