Paul Tait
Colleagues collaborating around a table

Paul Tait × Osborne Clarke

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Introduction

Authentic, people-focused photography for professional services.

For over 16 years I have worked with leading law firms, accountancy practices and banks, creating photography that strengthens employer brand, supports recruitment and reflects the culture clients and future employees experience every day.

Environmental portrait in a modern office

Understanding the challenge

The challenge isn't simply creating great portraits or individual brand assets.

It's building a coherent photography library that remains consistent, adaptable and commercially sustainable as the firm evolves.

01

More than headshots

Every image shapes how prospective recruits, clients and employees perceive the firm. Authentic workplace photography communicates culture, professionalism and what it genuinely feels like to work there.

While AI-generated and stock imagery continue to improve, they rarely withstand scrutiny. They lack authenticity, diminish trust and make organisations feel interchangeable. Original photography remains one of the clearest ways to communicate a firm\'s identity, values and culture.

02

Built for many uses

Photography should be versatile enough to work across websites, recruitment campaigns, business development, proposals, editorial, internal communications and social media, while giving creative teams the flexibility to tell different stories from the same library.

03

Designed for longevity

Each shoot should strengthen a consistent visual library that grows over time. By planning for longevity and flexibility, photography becomes a long-term business asset, reducing duplication, extending the life of the imagery and minimising the need for costly large-scale reshoots.

Two colleagues talking in a law firm office

Case study 01

FORSTERS

Colleagues working together

The challenge

Create a photography library that could grow with the firm over many years, remaining consistent as teams expanded, people joined and others moved on. The objective was to build a visual system that reduced the need for repeated large-scale reshoots while supporting recruitment, marketing and business development.

The approach

A repeatable photographic style was developed across portraits, leadership photography and workplace imagery. Every shoot added to the existing library, ensuring new photography integrated seamlessly with work produced months or years earlier.

The outcome

  • Consistent visual identity over several years
  • An efficient programme that reduced the need for costly full-library reshoots.
  • A flexible library supporting recruitment, marketing, business development, editorial content and internal communications.
Office meetingColleague walking through officeColleague writing in meetingColleagues collaboratingPresentationColleagues in atrium

Consistency at scale

More than 500 people, one maintainable visual style.

Portraits are delivered in multiple formats and dimensions for profile pages, team directories, pitch documents, LinkedIn and wider marketing use.

Forsters employee portrait

An economical case

More value from every shoot.

Every scene is photographed with multiple personnel combinations, allowing images to be replaced as people leave and join. Alongside recognisable people, the library includes details, architecture and flexible compositions that are not tied to a single individual.

Branded mugOverhead collaborationHands over plansOffice detailOffice architectureReception area

Case study 02

A&O SHEARMAN

A&O portrait

The challenge

Develop a portrait style that could be implemented consistently across more than forty international offices, regardless of location, photographer or architecture, while strengthening the firm's global visual identity.

The approach

Working alongside the Global Brand Manager, we developed the creative direction together, defining composition, lighting, colour, emotional tone and posing. I photographed six European offices, refined the process and produced a detailed photography style guide for worldwide rollout.

The outcome

  • A single portrait style adopted across more than forty offices.
  • A comprehensive photography style guide supporting international rollout.
  • A scalable visual identity that could evolve without repeated creative redevelopment.
Grid of consistent A&O portraits
Team interaction Colleagues at table Employee portrait Employee speaking
London office view Meeting with London skyline Employee working Conversation in office Employee at reception Quiet working area

Delivering a long-term photography programme

Built to evolve.

Costs

Photography programmes of this nature typically land at around £2,000 per shoot day within the UK and £3,000–£3,500 per shoot day across Europe, depending on travel requirements, locations and the scope of the programme.

A collaborative process

Images are reviewed live throughout the shoot with key stakeholders, particularly during portrait sessions where immediate feedback is invaluable. This not only builds confidence and buy-in from those being photographed, but also allows important creative decisions to be made in real time, significantly reducing lengthy post-production selection rounds. Every project is underpinned by a thorough pre-production process, covering logistics, schedules, locations, shot planning and stakeholder coordination to ensure everything runs smoothly on the day.

Consistency by design

Composition, lighting, colour, emotional tone and direction are established before the first frame, creating a repeatable visual system that can be delivered just as effectively in Bristol as in Berlin, Madrid or beyond.

Comprehensive image library

Each shoot day typically delivers 100+ professionally edited images, supplied with unrestricted internal and external marketing usage across websites, recruitment, social media, presentations, proposals and wider corporate communications.

End-to-end production

Every image is individually colour graded and professionally finished in my studio, supported by dedicated in-house retouching to enable rapid turnaround times while maintaining a consistently high visual standard across every office and every shoot.

Built to evolve

Portraits can be recreated seamlessly as new people join the business, while a carefully planned library of versatile workplace photography continues to support websites, recruitment, business development, presentations and marketing campaigns for years to come.

Thank you

Thank you for taking the time to read this proposal.
I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Get in touchpaultait.com