Photography

Photography is the second voice of the publication. We commission portraits and observational work – never stock, never AI. Four pillars, four crop ratios, one tonal treatment.

Four pillars

Every commissioned image falls into one of four pillars. If a request doesn’t fit one of these – it’s the wrong request.

A woman in a pink blazer reads a folder at a wood-panelled desk; vintage typewriter and orange dome lamp visible.

PORTRAIT · subject in environment

Pillar 01

Portraits – subject in environment.

Half-length or three-quarter, eye-line slightly above lens. Shot in the room where the work happens – kitchen tables, hotel lobbies, back offices. Never white seamless. Never on a couch in a sunny window.

An empty office at the end of the day – desks and chairs left as they were, late-afternoon light through Venetian blinds.

PLACE · location, no people

Pillar 02

Places – where the work happens.

Empty rooms, late afternoon. Architectural interiors, often slightly cluttered. These ground a story in a specific city, a specific building. The composition reads as a stage that has just been left.

An open notebook beside a glass jar of pens, shot top-down on weathered wooden boards.

OBJECT · still life

Pillar 03

Objects – the artefacts of the work.

Notebooks, calendars, the things people carry. Shot top-down on natural surfaces – wood, paper, linen – with directional daylight. Never on a backdrop.

A man in a navy suit walks down a long, sign-lined corridor; a colleague with a wheeled bag in the distance.

CANDID · observed moment

Pillar 04

Candid – the moment between moments.

Reportage from the edges – corridors, lifts, a phone glance before a meeting. Shot loose, never composed for the camera. Used sparingly: too many candids and the publication starts to feel like a paparazzi feed.

Tonal treatment

Slightly desaturated. Warm shadows, neutral mid-tones, never crushed blacks. Skin retains its colour. The look should read as photographed, not graded – a hint of film, never an Instagram filter.

house – default

−10 saturation, +8 warmth, lifted shadows. The standard look.

archive – mono

Archival material and editor pieces. Warm-toned grayscale.

duotone – feature

Cream + teal-700. Section openers and editorial covers only.

duotone – accent

Cream + orange-700. Annual covers, single-occasion use.

Crop ratios

Every commissioned image is delivered in all four crops. Surfaces use the ratio that matches their geometry – no smart-cropping at runtime, no off-ratio uses. Pre-cropping is the photographer’s call, made on the shoot.

21:9 · cinematic

Article hero, marketing banner, section opener.

16:9 · landscape

Index card, social share.

4:5 · portrait

Mobile hero, print, in-line portraits.

1:1 · square

Avatars, contributor thumbs, podcast art.

Captions and credits

Credit appears under every photograph – small caps, monospace, top-aligned with the caption. Captions are written, not generated, and never describe what’s already obvious in the frame.

A woman in a pink blazer reading a folder at a wood-panelled desk.

Photography · [photographer] for Executive Support

[Subject], in [their office], the morning after [the moment].

An empty office at the end of the day, late-afternoon light through Venetian blinds.

Archive · [collection / agency]

[Place, city, year].

Usage rules

Do · Commission

A commissioned editorial portrait of a subject working at a desk in their own office.

A photographer in the room. A real subject. Specific to this story, used nowhere else.

Don't · Stock photography

Stock kills the publication. The subject is a model, the room is fake, the moment never happened.

Do · Caption with a fact

“In her office, the morning after the deal closed.”

Where, when, what. A caption points at something the reader would otherwise miss.

Don't · Caption the obvious

“A woman sitting at a desk.”

If the caption only describes the frame, delete it. Captions earn their place by adding fact.