Sprout.ai — case study

The brief

Sprout.ai needed a single-day session that solved three problems at once. First, they needed consistent professional headshots for their team of twenty — the kind of images that work on the website team page, LinkedIn profiles, and the about-us slides in fundraising decks. Second, they wanted candid coverage of office life — the team collaborating, working, taking breaks, the texture of their day-to-day. Third, they wanted small-group and full-team portraits that could anchor press coverage when funding announcements landed.

The constraint was time. Twenty headshots at 5–10 minutes each plus candid coverage plus group portraits in a single day is achievable, but only with a tight plan and a portable studio that doesn’t take 90 minutes to set up.

The locations

This case study covers two separate shoots, two years apart — an original session at one hired London venue, then a refresh session two years later at a second. Both venues were chosen for their industrial-loft character rather than using Sprout’s own office.

The original session ran at Menier Room Venues on Southwark Street (53 Southwark St, SE1 1RU) — meeting rooms, a courtyard with palms, and modern coworking spaces alongside a softer industrial-loft palette for the smaller-group portraits.

The refresh session, two years later, moved to Sizona Warehouse in Clerkenwell (4 Dingley Place, EC1V 8BP). Different visual character — high ceilings, big windows, exposed brickwork, hanging plants, and a long wooden table that worked beautifully for candid working shots — letting Sprout refresh their content library without the new images looking like a continuation of the older set.

Natural light through the windows handled the candid coverage at both shoots; for headshots I set up a portable studio in a quieter corner of each venue so team members could come over in 5–10 minute slots without losing the day’s pace.

The day

We split the day into three blocks. The morning was headshots — a steady stream of team members rotating through the studio corner while everyone else continued working. By midday all twenty were done, with at least one strong final per person. After lunch I shot candid coverage for two hours: workspace shots, team conversations, screen-and-laptop work, casual interactions in the kitchen and around the plants. The last hour was reserved for the deliberate group portraits — the full-team shot in the main work area, smaller groupings on the wooden staircase, and a couple of pairs and trios for the leadership team’s individual press needs.

Where the photos ended up

The photos went exactly where Sprout needed them. The headshots populated their website team page and the team’s individual LinkedIn profiles, all consistent in look and feel. The candid coverage and group portraits anchored their fundraising decks and investor updates. And — the test of any corporate session — the photos ended up in press coverage when their funding stories ran, with publications using both the team-of-twenty shot and several of the candid working images.

The result, in their words

“Anna was responsible for taking our company photos including headshots as well as candids. The team of 20 were all super impressed with the results and the photos have been used across our platforms and even in the press. Would 100% recommend using Anna for any photography needs!”

— Lizzie Chisholm, COO, Sprout.ai

What this case study shows

The combination of consistent headshots, candid working coverage, and deliberate group portraits in a single day is the most cost-effective corporate session you can book — it gives marketing, PR, and HR everything they need from one shoot, in one location, with one consistent visual style. For early-stage companies between funding rounds, or established teams that have grown past a single founder’s headshot, this is the typical brief. Get in touch if you’d like to talk through what your version of it would look like.