Continental’s Reach // INFLUENCE Magazine

Continental’s Reach // INFLUENCE Magazine

INFLUENCE Magazine assigned us to photograph the Continental Strategy team for a feature in their Fall 2025 issue. The story, written by Jacob Ogles, profiled the lobbying and legal firm, and our assignment took us to their offices on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. for a group portrait session.

Group portrait photography in a professional office setting is a logistical challenge no matter where it happens, but doing it in a D.C. office one block from the White House adds its own layer. You're coordinating schedules for a large team, sometimes working within the physical constraints of an office layout, and making sure everyone reads clearly in the frame. They have a big team, so the session required planning ahead to determine where in the space a group composition would work and how to light it effectively.

As a Washington D.C. photographer working on editorial assignments, we've learned that D.C. office environments vary widely. Some have the open floor plans and conference rooms that give you space to set up; others are tighter and more compartmentalized. Continental Strategy's Pennsylvania Avenue offices have a rooftop space that gave us a professional backdrop that communicated the scale and presence of the firm, which is what the magazine needed for the feature. We used Profoto lighting to manage the group portrait and ensure even, consistent light across a wider frame. When you're photographing a group this size, the lighting has to be positioned to cover the full width of the composition without falling off at the edges or creating uneven shadows across faces.

We worked with our Canon mirrorless system and Canon lenses that gave us the depth of field needed to keep the full group sharp while still maintaining the kind of image quality that holds up across a magazine spread. Group portraits require a different lens selection than individual work; you need to go wider while keeping distortion under control, especially when subjects are positioned at the edges of the frame.

D.C. editorial photography is a growing part of our work. We are based in Tallahassee, but assignments like this take us to Washington regularly to serve publications like INFLUENCE Magazine. The Workmans bring the same approach to every session regardless of location: come prepared, understand the space, respect the subject's time, and deliver images that serve the story the publication is telling.

This feature was photographed by The Workmans for INFLUENCE Magazine and appeared in the Fall 2025 issue and was written by Jacob Ogles. The Workmans are a husband-and-wife photography team based in Tallahassee, Florida, and we work with publications across the state of Florida, in Washington D.C. and around the United States. You can explore more of our editorial photography in the archive, see more of our work across our website and connect with us on how we can best serve you!