Corporate Photographer: From Family Photos to Portraits with Amélie Marzouk

Plenty of photographers take on corporate work to fill their weekdays, often without much passion. So did Amélie Marzouk, at first. Then a portrait workshop showed her that you could "dust off the corporate portrait" and go much further in your connection with the person in front of the camera.

Talking with Anthony Heukmes, she explains who her clients are, how she makes them photogenic, why LinkedIn became her best source of clients, and what she still finds hard: selling prints to professional clients. A useful episode for any photographer thinking about getting into business portraits.

Who is Amélie Marzouk?

Amélie Marzouk is a portrait photographer based in Paris. When the episode was recorded, in early 2021, she was 40, had been working as a professional photographer for almost seven years and devoted 60 to 70% of her business to portraits, especially corporate portraits and personal branding.

• A career change: after studying psychology and then communications, she spent more than ten years as a web marketing project manager in the insurance industry.
• Family photography first: babies, pregnancies, families and bachelorette parties, before opening her studio in May 2018.
• A trained portrait photographer: she regularly takes workshops with portrait photographers she admires.

Her path is similar to that of other podcast guests, such as Émilie Zangarelli's career change: a first career far from photography, whose skills end up serving the new profession.

According to her website today, her studio, founded in 2014 and tucked away in the 17th arrondissement of Paris (with a presence in Marrakech), offers high-end portraits: corporate, LinkedIn, personal branding, personal portraits and model portfolios. She promises to help everyone "make peace" with their image, with sessions free of stiff poses. She now works with a team of photographers, trains other photographers, hosts the podcast "Miroirs" and has appeared on French television (France Télévisions, M6). This information comes from her current website; the episode itself dates from 2021.

1. Why switch from family photography to corporate photography?

When Amélie started out, she was passionate about families, babies and pregnancies. But those sessions mostly take place on weekends. When she opened her studio in May 2018, she figured a bit of corporate work could diversify her business and fill her weekdays.

The turning point came during a workshop with Milena, a portrait photographer with some fifteen years of experience. She showed Amélie that portraiture goes far beyond classic corporate photos: you can have fun, go further in the encounter and look for something more intimate in people's personalities. Amélie went on to take several other portrait workshops.

"What I particularly love about portraits is the encounter and the connection. A bit like an intimate confession, a truly suspended moment between my client and me."

Amélie Marzouk

Back to her first love

Amélie started taking pictures at 15, and they were portraits. By specializing, she feels she has come back to what drove her in the first place. She still does family photography, mostly for former clients who come back, but portraiture is where she thrives most.

2. Who hires a corporate photographer?

At first, her corporate clients were her family clients, whom she told that she also did professional portraits. Then her client base took a very clear shape: 90% women, 70% of them entrepreneurs, mostly around 40. They find her through word of mouth or on LinkedIn.

Personal branding above all

These entrepreneurs are not looking for a simple photo. They want an image that reveals their personality, their identity and their values: in short, their brand. They then use it everywhere: LinkedIn profile, website, interviews, podcasts.

Why so few 25-year-olds? Amélie has two explanations. First, you attract people who are like you: she is 40, went through a career change, and many of her clients are on the same journey. Second, at 40, you often need someone you trust to feel beautiful and valued in a photo.

In the studio, but also on site

Most of her clients come to the studio. But she also works for large companies and big law firms. In that case, she travels with her backdrop and lights and shoots a series of portraits over the day. She often adds environmental portraits, sitting on a desk, in natural light, to offer variations suited to different communication channels.

Anthony compares it to school photography. The difference, Amélie says with a smile: they are not 4-year-olds, and you have to help adults relax when they often would rather be somewhere else.

3. How do you make a client photogenic when they think they are not?

"I'm not photogenic": that is the sentence Amélie hears most often at the start of a session. Her answer is always the same: making people photogenic is precisely her job. For her, being photogenic is first and foremost about feeling at ease. A tense person will never be photogenic, even with a gorgeous smile.

"Beyond a portrait photographer's technique, what really matters is their ability to put people at ease and gain their trust to bring out the best in them."

Amélie Marzouk

Preparing the session: understanding the intention

Before every session, Amélie talks with her client to understand what they want to convey. On the very morning of the recording, a high-end real estate agent had asked her for relaxed photos, definitely not corporate-looking ones. Every client has different expectations depending on their personality, their own clients and the image they want to project. A questionnaire sent before the session helps you ask these questions ahead of time.

And what if the client does not know what they want? Amélie guides them there. Her dual background, in psychology and then in communications, gives her an approach that combines listening and branding: she gets the person talking about their project and where they see themselves in a year, and intuitively senses what needs to be revealed.

Showing the photos during the session

Amélie shows the images to the client as she goes, to reassure them and check that the result matches their expectations. She reports 99% client satisfaction. Her best reward: a client who, before a stressful meeting, looks at her portrait again to remind herself how others see her.

Being photogenic is not about looks

A story from her early days convinced her. For one of her first portraits, she photographed a young man putting together a portfolio for a modeling agency. He was objectively very handsome, and yet on her camera screen he looked "ugly": she was not framing him the right way. You can bring out every flaw in a very attractive person, and flatter someone who does not fit conventional beauty standards.

Getting in front of the camera yourself

Every year, Amélie has her portrait taken by another portrait photographer, and every year she dreads the session before coming out delighted. She sees a common mistake among photographers here: never putting themselves in the client's shoes.

"We can't tell people to come to us and never go to a photographer ourselves."

Amélie Marzouk

Caring about the experience also comes down to practical details. At the end of the episode, Amélie admits that she still sends a short message by hand the day before every session to confirm the appointment. That is exactly the kind of task an automated workflow can take care of.

4. How do you find corporate clients on LinkedIn?

Amélie has never cold-pitched large companies. Her two sources of clients: word of mouth and LinkedIn. Her network from her previous life, in insurance and in advertising where her husband worked, gave her a real boost. Early on, she also offered free portraits to people around her who had large networks of their own.

Post without ever selling

She posts two to three times a week, and never says "come and book a session at the studio". She aims to spark curiosity and create interaction. Her previous job in web content helps her structure her posts. A few formats that work for her:

• Questions: a post titled "Are you photogenic?" is bound to get clicks.
• Giveaways: the one she ran before Christmas reached 28,000 views, and many participants who did not win booked a portrait anyway.
• Before/after pictures: she posts a client's old photo next to their new portrait and thanks them. Their contacts comment, and the network of her network discovers her work.
• Behind the scenes: a short live video from the studio, saying hello before the day's sessions, went down very well.
• Surprise: she started on LinkedIn by posting babies, to stand out from the rather austere professional photos in the feed.

"In corporate work, people tell me: I hadn't thought about getting a photo, but seeing your photos makes me want one. So I create a need they didn't have."

Amélie Marzouk

Why photographers still underuse LinkedIn

Anthony stresses the platform's organic reach: when someone comments on your post, their own contacts see it. And most members remain spectators; people who post every week are rare, and therefore visible. Another advantage: a post lives for about a week and then disappears from the feed. LinkedIn becomes a sandbox where you can test ideas with little risk.

He even sees it as an opportunity for family photographers who want to stand out: there are moms and dads on LinkedIn too. Amélie points out that the platform mostly brings together managers aged 30 to 40, a very attractive audience depending on your positioning.

5. Should you specialize in corporate portraits?

Amélie has tried several fields: newborn training, food photography training, a few attempts at weddings. Her conclusion: they were not for her. Posed newborn photography, slow and demanding a lot of patience, did not suit her. Her real passion is people, and conversation.

"I don't think you can do everything, and the client gets lost."

Amélie Marzouk

One website per field

So she has several websites: a client looking for a corporate portrait should not land on babies, dogs and families and wonder whether they are in the right place. Her family website actually ranked very well in search engines, unlike her corporate website, which lives mainly through LinkedIn. If you are unsure whether to separate your activities, a photography website for each field clarifies both your message and your SEO.

Specialized, but not in a single activity

The pandemic made her view more nuanced. After three months of closure during the first lockdown, she did well thanks to her two pillars: families coming back for a second or third baby, and corporate word of mouth. Her balance: being known as a portrait expert while keeping family photography for her former clients.

What about a small town?

Without knowing any "pure corporate" photographer in the countryside, Amélie suggests presenting the offer as portraits rather than corporate photography. People come for a LinkedIn portrait or a personal brand portrait, and it is also an opportunity to get beautiful personal photos. In fact, many of her clients come at times of change in their lives: a new job, a divorce, motherhood.

6. How do you stand out from other corporate photographers?

According to Amélie, many photographers do corporate work to diversify their business, without real passion. And then there are the passionate portrait photographers, a small group in Paris, whom she does not see as real competitors: each one works with their own personality, and the clients who go to one are not necessarily the clients of another.

She also notes that in family photography she was far less differentiated: many photographers offer more or less the same thing. In corporate work, her uniqueness stands out immediately.

Color on a black background, her signature

Her signature shot: the color portrait on a black background. When she started, many people believed a black background necessarily meant black and white, in the style of the famous Studio Harcourt in Paris. During a workshop, one photographer even told her that this was not how you light a background. She kept her own approach, and that is precisely why her clients come to her.

"The more genuine we are about what we do, the more clients we will attract."

Amélie Marzouk

She adds one more ingredient: enjoyment. Even when she is tired, the magic happens when the client arrives, the music plays and she has fun. For her, that is half the business. And she never stops learning: she compares her photos from five years ago with today's and advises photographers who are starting out to get trained and to "shoot, shoot, shoot".

7. Can you sell prints to corporate clients?

This is the challenge Amélie readily admits to. She easily sells extra photos on top of her package, but not yet beautiful prints. Yet her corporate sessions cost the same price as her family sessions. The result: to match the revenue of a family session with products, she needs two corporate sessions. Keep this in mind when you work out your photography prices: without additional products, the package has to cover most of the value.

Your client's wallet is not yours

Where does the block come from? Amélie is candid about it: she will buy a 1,200 euro phone without hesitating, yet finds it unthinkable that a client would spend that much with her. She is no longer ashamed of her packages, because she knows what her work is worth, but the margin on products makes her uncomfortable. Anthony reminds her of a phrase heard on the podcast: your clients' wallet is not your wallet.

"There's no reason they wouldn't want to buy high-end products afterwards, if it's done well, and without apologizing for wanting to sell expensive products."

Amélie Marzouk

Her goal for 2021: selling paper prints to corporate clients. She plans to end each session with a few more personal photos, and to start by giving prints away to get used to the product before putting a value on it. A viewing session with the client is often the best time to present these products. Anthony also suggests working with a sales coach. Amélie prefers to keep selling in her own hands: she is the one who embodies her brand, from start to finish.

Corporate clients who come back

A pleasant surprise: the more her business grows, the more her corporate clients come back, sometimes year after year. They are strong referrers, because they are very active on LinkedIn, and they often come back later for a family session.

8. Can you publish your clients' portraits?

In corporate work, clients rarely refuse to be published, unlike families who do not always want to show their children. Most are actually proud, to the point of asking for their portrait to be posted. Amélie still respects those who prefer not to appear, especially on Instagram.

Large law firms, especially British and American ones, usually say no: their brand guidelines are strict and they do not want their portraits published just anywhere. It is best to clarify this point from the start, for example in your photography contracts.

Finally, Amélie does not publish everyone: she chooses portraits according to the clients she wants to attract. If people point out that she posts a lot of women, it is simply because 90% of her clients are women, and that is what she prefers to photograph.

Episode recorded in early 2021, during the pandemic. Amélie mentions a photo book created during the first lockdown, crowdfunded at the time, and an exhibition planned for the end of the lockdown. These projects, like the figures mentioned, refer to that period.

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