Behind the Scenes of Sassafras’ Virtual Team Photoshoot

Sassafras seized an opportunity that had been on our radar for quite a while: to spend a little time on ourselves! We set out in March with a full branding task force, who defined a social, brand, web, and marketing strategy. No rock was left unturned! One very important strategic mission was to convey how fun and fabulous our team really is. We don’t take ourselves too seriously over here and believe silly activities and personalities define/shape our culture. So, when it came time to ‘show’ who we are, we set out to embrace all 17 of our unique employees!

So how did we do this? And across the country no less? Prep and organization! It can take months to get everything together for a photoshoot. Group Creative Director Allison Heather facilitated the process and made everything run smoothly. And she explains it all to us this week!

Define roles and responsibilities

We have employees across 5 states, so this was a complex photoshoot. All in two weeks with five different photographers. Since I’m located here in Kansas City, we called this home base. We worked again with our favorite KC photographer, Jenny Wheat, to mastermind the shoot. We set up a replicable shoot for the lighting and setting so we could communicate and parallel the shoot with our other photographers.

Set goals

We wanted our team to stand out from the competition and present ourselves, and our brand, in the best light. The goal of this photoshoot was to highlight the personalities of each unique individual at Sassafras—told as one collective story. Each team member would appear in an authentic, relatable and FUN setting; with two shots: a smile and a personality.

Set expectations

A simple smile was the plan for the lead photo on our website, but we definitely wanted employees to have fun with the secondary poses. They were encouraged to use props that showed their personalities while still showing their faces.

Manage Time

Schedules were key and rotated every 15 minutes. One employee on deck and one in the shoot. We did extensive preparation and pre-work. And the team was right on point with their smiles and props.

Style and Grooming Tips

We wanted to be us! So, we used a light post retouch. We weren’t looking to be anything but our wonderful selves. Therefore, what you see is who we are! We are a SMART eclectic group, with many years of experience. Some of us are young and some a little older. We are different in gender, race and personality. Our style and grooming direction was just to come as you are.

When you’re a creative agency working for fun and innovative clients, you don’t always get the time or opportunity to focus on yourself. But we’re glad we did and hope you take some learnings and nuggets from Allison to execute your own seamless photoshoot. Now head over to view the final product yourself!