Checking out our first Profile Photo Shoot!
Hello! I’m Mao, secretary and PR in the MCO!
For this newsletter, we checked out the first “Profile Photo Shoot” that took place on April 19th! If you’re still debating on whether you want to attend the next one or not, keep reading to learn more!
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When will the sessions take place? Where can I use the photos?
On April 6th, our CCO Fujii-san sent the following message on Slack, inviting people to the photo shoot!
The profile photo shoot hosted by the MCO Design Team’s Creative Director Motoko MATSUGAMI-san will take place quarterly in April, July, October, and January.👏
Matsugami-san has been in charge of many design projects such as the UX Square Tokyo (beBit’s office), sales documents, corporate website, covers of the “After Digital” series (from the second book), the monochrome photos in the office space, and internal and external events.
In addition to designing, she also does consulting work and assists our Executive Vice President Nakajima-san. beBit’s superwoman Matsugami-san is also the reason I joined this company, and I still work very closely with her to this day♡
The profile photo sessions take place with Matsugami-san and a professional photographer! You may be able to discover a new you through the photos!😉
Each unique pose was suggested by Matsugami-san!
The photos taken can be used for documents, seminars, presentations, interviews, press releases, and much more! We plan on strengthening our outgoing content in order to build more awareness, so please take this chance to have your “one and only” photo taken♪
In some departments, people may feel that they don’t need their photo taken as they don’t have a chance to use it. I, too, thought so at first but since COVID-19 has spread, I haven’t had the opportunity to meet many of the newcomers in the company. Many of the times, I’ve contacted individuals without ever having the chance to meet them in person!
I decided to participate as I felt that having my photo as my Slack icon would allow the person I message to see who I am better and be able to communicate more effectively.
By changing your Slack icon to a nice photo taken at the session, you’ll be able to eliminate the recently common occurrence of a person's name and face not matching. That may make it just a little bit easier to start a conversation in the office!
It may be only an icon, but it may be an important icon.
I’m of the belief that changing your icon will bring good things 😎
Recently, I’ve had more opportunities to speak publicly through Slack (#uxpicks, posted daily!) and during the “beBit Magazine” podcasts (I’ve been speaking during the Editor sessions!). I hope that through my icon and messages, we can get to know each other a bit more!♪
Step 1 (Before the photo shoot)
First, if you want to be photographed, respond to the form in the announcement that will be sent out by Fujii-san. When the date approaches, Matsugami-san will invite you to the private Slack channel for participants!
For the memorable first photo session, a total of 26 participants joined!🎉 Once you’re in the channel, you’ll receive an update on the details and precautions for the photo shoot in addition to the points below!
Matsugami-san’s self introduction
Background of the photo session, shooting schedule, and location the photos will be stored
Recommended clothing
Past photos for reference
The photo shoot this time took place on April 19th from 10am to 1pm. You were able to choose a time slot (10am, 11am, 12pm slots), and each person would be scheduled accordingly.
In order to keep a safe distance from one another, the number of people in each time slot was limited to a minimum so it was very safe♩
You can get your skin treated at a spa the day before,
or cut and color your hair,
practice your best pose for the photo,
or just go for it!
Prepare your mind and get your photo taken!
Step 2 (Day of the photo shoot)
Like me, Kenny and Eri from the MCO were also in the 10am time slot. We headed to the designated conference room (seminar room B) together. It’s a room with plenty of windows, so the room is cool with great ventilation! Utilize the hand sanitizer near the entrance and be sure to keep your mask on until it’s your turn to be photographed!
When we entered the room, the cameraman wearing an orange sweater and Matsugami-san were already there with the photography equipment set up!
Once the photographer was ready, he turned on some music and the photography session began! While most of the people had never met each other before, the session took place in a friendly atmosphere regardless of the divisions everyone was from!
When the cameraman takes a shot, the photo can be seen on the computer in front of Matsugami-san. From the photo, Matsugami-san gives advice on posing (pulling your chin back, direction of your face, posture, etc.) and hair styling.
Even if you’re not the most comfortable with photos, you can come relaxed as they will advise you on how to be photographed😉
Of course, there were members of beBit who are not in the MCO team having their photos taken as well. Each person took about 3~5 minutes, so the downtime was spent working or enjoying watching the others being photographed😂
Once you’ve been photographed, you were able to leave the room right away and return to work so there was close to no downtime!
The session went smoothly, and it only took about 30 minutes out of the 1 hour time slot to take everyone’s photos!
Since there was a gap until the 11am session, we spent a little bit of time checking out the process after the photography as well! Out of the many shots taken, Matsugami-san chose a select few from each individual for the photographer to retouch.
After seeing the data, the photographer took a bit of time for a little mini-photo shoot as well!🤣 I’ll tell you about it in the spin-off section at the end of this article!
After the mini-photo shoot, Matsugami-san reached out to the 11am time slot members to see if anyone could come earlier. The following time slots went by quickly, and the “First Profile Photo Shoot” ended in a success!
The photos taken were retouched and shared with us about 1 week after the session! Talk about speedy!
Matsugami-san and photographer-san! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to create this precious opportunity🙏
（Thank you Morita-san from Morita Photo Studio）
Step 3 (Receiving our retouched photos!)
About 1 week after the session, Matsugami-san sent out the photos through the private Slack channel😍
Each person had 2~5 photos, and every single photo was beautiful! The word beautiful isn’t enough. There were smiles, laughing faces, and even some photos looking like album covers! The variety in expressions were amazing as well♪
As soon as I received the photos, I chose my favorite one and tried changing my Slack icon!
Although it’s a bit embarrassing sending this out, here’s the MCO trio for example! Feel free to give us a shot if you see us around the office 🤭
Spin off（Mini-Photo Shoot）
As I mentioned in step 2, the photographer was kind enough to take fancy photos of us in a mini-photo shoot!
(※Please note that this is not a part of the regular photo session)
While it was just a quick snap session, I was definitely wowed by the quality!
That concludes our report on the Profile Photo Shoot! Thank you for taking the time to read this far.
The next photo shoot is scheduled to take place in July. If you are even a little bit interested, please check it out!📸
Our next newsletter will be about the “UX Intelligence Association”! Be sure to check it out!