The gig: a tech company rebrand. They needed new headshots for every employee. 47 people, one day, and the brand guidelines document was 14 pages of requirements that boiled down to "clean, modern, consistent."
What the client didn't know — what they never need to know — is that the tethering software running the entire operation cost less than one of the sitting fees they were billing internally per employee.
$99. For the whole shoot. And every shoot after it. Forever.
The setup
Corporate headshot days are a logistics problem disguised as a photography job. You're not just making 47 people look good — you're processing them through a system fast enough to stay on schedule while maintaining quality that survives LinkedIn at full resolution and gets printed for the lobby wall at 24x30.
Here's my rig:
- Sony A7IV on a tripod (locked off for consistency)
- 105mm f/1.4 (because headshots deserve real glass)
- Two Profoto B10s — main and fill, same setup for everyone
- USB-C cable from camera to MacBook Pro (27" external monitor would've been nice, but the 16" screen is fine)
- TETHER STUDIO running with a session template: "Headshots - [Company Name]"
Total setup time: 40 minutes for lighting (the real work), 60 seconds for tethering (plug in, open app, test fire).
The workflow: 5 minutes per person
Each person gets roughly 5-7 minutes. That's tight. Here's how each one goes:
Minute 0-1: They sit down. I check the framing on the tethered screen. If they're taller or shorter than the last person, I adjust the tripod. Slight chin repositions. "Turn slightly left — stop. Perfect."
Minute 1-3: I shoot 8-12 frames. Talking the whole time — not about photography, just normal conversation. People relax when you're talking to them. They tense up when you go silent and start clicking. I learned this from watching Peter Hurley's work, but honestly any portrait photographer knows: the best expression happens between the poses.
Minute 3-4: Quick review on the tethered screen. I hit P on the best 2-3 frames. The subject can see themselves on the Mac screen — they relax even more when they see they look good. "That one. That's your LinkedIn photo." People love hearing that.
Minute 4-5: They leave, next person sits down. Smart Cull starts running on the previous person's set in the background. By the time the next person is settled, the previous set is culled.
Smart Cull earned its keep on this shoot
47 people × 10 frames average = 470 images. Without AI culling, that's 60-90 minutes of going frame by frame at the end of the day. With Smart Cull, here's what happened:
- Blinks detected and auto-rejected: 23 frames (about 5% — normal for fast shooting)
- Soft focus flagged: 14 frames (camera micro-vibration at low shutter speeds)
- Duplicate groups identified: 47 groups (one per person, obviously)
- Sharpest frame per group highlighted: 47 frames
After Smart Cull, I had 47 pre-selected hero shots. I scanned them in 5 minutes — adjusted maybe 4 picks where I preferred a different expression — and hit Export.
Total culling time: 8 minutes. Down from the 60-90 it would have taken manually. That's an hour of my life back. On a headshot day, that hour is the difference between delivering same-day and delivering "tomorrow morning."
The client review trick
Here's something I do on every headshot day that makes the client love you: Client View mode.
At lunch break (halfway through the roster), I switch TETHER STUDIO to Client View — a full-screen presentation of the picks so far. I walk the HR coordinator through the first 20 headshots. They see the consistency, the quality, the fact that Frank from accounting actually looks approachable for once.
"These look amazing." That's what you want to hear mid-shoot. It confirms you're on track, it builds confidence, and it means no surprise revision requests at delivery.
If I was shipping files to Dropbox and showing proofs later, that feedback loop takes a day. On set, tethered, it takes 5 minutes over a sandwich.
The delivery
4:30 PM. Last person photographed at 4:15. Here's the sequence:
- Smart Cull on the final batch (2 minutes)
- Quick scan of final picks (3 minutes)
- Pro Export: JPEG at 90%, full resolution, IPTC embedded with company name and copyright (runs in background — 7 minutes for 47 images)
- Upload to client's Dropbox (10 minutes on studio WiFi)
5:00 PM: delivered. Same day. The client expected "early next week." Under-promise, over-deliver. That's how you get booked again.
The part nobody talks about
At some point during the shoot, the HR coordinator walked behind me and glanced at my screen. TETHER STUDIO's dark interface, the filmstrip, the big preview, the rating badges.
"Is that Capture One?" she asked.
"Something like it," I said.
She didn't ask more. Because it doesn't matter. The client cares about the images, not the software. They care about consistency, quality, and turnaround time. A $99 app delivered all three.
But I know what Capture One would have cost for this same job: $229/year for the subscription. Or $329 for the perpetual license that they'll discontinue next year and force me to subscribe anyway.
$99. Once. Every headshot day from here forward is free. The software paid for itself before the first person sat down.
47 headshots. 4 hours. Same-day delivery. $99 software.
The expensive part was the photographer. As it should be.