Photography Guidelines

Photography plays an important role in telling our story and serving as a tool for historical documentation.

Portraits of individuals should convey authentic personality without an overly staged feel. There are two basic styles of portraits — environmental and studio.

Environmental portraits place the subject within a space that is relevant to the story. When shooting an environmental portrait, make sure there is adequate lighting (natural or artificial) and that enough of the environment is showing without being too distracting from the subject.

Studio portraiture is much more controlled. Studio portraiture isolates the subject without distracting elements in the background. Compose portraits with the head and shoulders filling the frame. The face should be evenly lit. Use a clean, neutral color backdrop.

The beauty of Geneseo’s campus should translate to still photographs in a way that elicits an emotional response. Geneseo’s iconic buildings and landmarks are some of our most valuable assets in connecting. Photos should be compositionally well balanced, and showcase the most attractive landmarks and green spaces.

Found or posed photographs of people in the classroom or around campus. Photo groupings should be well balanced, with the main subject’s facial features fully showing, in bright and engaging environments and should include a broad range of students.

Don’t stretch or distort images.