Student Headshots For Imperial College London

Imperial College London required professional headshots for approximately 1,500 students across various departments to support official university records, student ID systems, and professional networking profiles. Working with the Student Life team at Imperial, we were tasked not only with delivering high-quality, personalised portraits for every student over four days but also with completely overhauling their existing process to eliminate the massive administrative workload that previously burdened their staff.

The initial process faced by the Student Life team at Imperial was highly inefficient. Previous photography providers lacked the expertise to handle such high volume, leaving the University with an immediate and considerable post-shoot administrative burden. This required staff to manually rename, sort, and share hundreds of individual images with the corresponding students, resulting in days of laborious work, as well as a flooded inbox of student queries. It became clear that success for this project wouldn’t just be about the final photo quality, but about implementing a system that eliminated this administrative headache entirely.

To solve this, Headshot Company delivered four separate on-campus headshot events at Imperial’s main Kensington site, utilising our high-volume, instant delivery workflow. This process completely streamlined the process. On the day, students simply entered their details and received their images instantly via a private gallery. They could download and use their images immediately and also select their favourite one for retouch too! This was the key operational shift that transformed the client’s experience from a manual process into one that required hardly any work from the Student Life Team:

‘It has been a pleasure to work with James and Donna at Headshot Company.

The process has been seamless from start to finish. From initial meetings giving us the full run through of how the process works and answering our endless questions, to delivering 4 separate headshot sessions for us throughout September.

We have gone from a very manual process of renaming and sharing images with students ourselves, to a high-quality process that requires virtually no work from our team. The system of students filling in their details on the day and receiving their photos directly has honestly saved us hours, if not days’ worth of work. Not to mention a quiet(er) inbox!

The image quality is also fantastic, while we want to maintain a certain level of uniformity to our student headshots, James has still ensured that the photos have personality to them. Not once did he rush the students through, giving each the time to take photos that they are truly happy with. We are so pleased with the photo quality, communication and professionalism from both James and Donna, and I have no doubt we’ll continue to work with them for the coming years.’

– Imperial College London

A major difference in our approach was balancing the required speed with genuine quality and personalisation. Despite photographing 1,500 students in just four days, we never rushed the process. We ensured that each student was given time and direction, creating a mini-set of headshots with different poses, resulting in images that were both professional and full of character. 

The image quality achieved was so high that students immediately began using their un-retouched photos on professional networks like LinkedIn. This commitment to the student experience resulted in exceptional feedback and even several unsolicited five star Google reviews!

This successful partnership underscores our ability to scale professional photography without scaling administrative complexity. Our zero-admin, high-quality solution is trusted by other highly-regarded institutions including the University of Cambridge and Haileybury School, proving that efficiency and exceptional image quality can be delivered simultaneously for any volume of students.