Evelyn Sotelo Portrait Session

I recently created a series of portraits of our our accountant, Evelyn Sotelo. These photos will be used for her marketing and social campaigns during the ramp up to tax season. She helps us with our annual tax returns and helped me incorporate my business after we moved from D.C. to Maryland.

I cannot recommend a good, trusted, easy to contact accountant to budding entrepreneurs enough. If you are starting your first business, close the Legal Zoom window of your browser and search for a local accountant instead. They are generally going to spend more time answering your questions, have a better lay of the land in the state you are incorporating in and will most likely save you a lot of money.

I have already spent a lot of time in her office so I came in with a pretty good idea of they type of photos we would make and how they would look.

Step 1: Start at The Desk

We started out with some posed photos of her at her desk. Evelyn has worked hard to make her office and services COVID safe for her clients. She has moved to online consultations and built distancing and safety precautions into her Hyattsville, Maryland office, so we did a second series of photos with her plexiglass partitions in place. We also posed her in some client scenarios, showing how in-person client meetings will be conducted safely and effectively for the forceable future.

Doing a series with and without the safety precautions can extend the life of the photos. There is hope that we won’t need all of this COVID stuff someday.

Step 2: Onto the Headshots

After that, it was a straightforward series of headshots of Evelyn and her colleague on full white. These were done on a light gray wall of her waiting room. Just about any color can be made white if it is lit with enough light. The setup was a bit cramped but was enough for what we needed. Headshots can be taken just about anywhere. Hauling in and setting up the related equipment is most of the work, so it’s an easy and beneficial addition to any portrait session.

Bonus Materials

I finished up with a few new portraits of her waiting room. These are always good for a client to have on hand. I find it’s always good to make a few of these if possible since I’m already on location with my equipment. I’m particularly fond of the frame of the waiting room with Evelyn busily working in the background. Both rooms were lit with small flashes (her room was gelled warmer in an effort to subtly draw the eyes of a viewer in her direction) and only took a few minutes to complete.

In all, I was there for about an hour and delivered a versatile series of images that can be used on print and digital promos, social media and digital marketing platforms.