A matched set has an expiry date

Company portrait projects are judged on the day they finish. The interesting measurement is fourteen months later.

What happens in between

People join. Each new person is photographed differently, or not at all, and the page drifts. Within about eighteen months it is back to three or four coexisting styles.

That is not neglect. It is arithmetic — a session produces a matched set on one day and no mechanism for the day after.

Why the fix is a specification rather than a photographer

Because the requirement is reproducibility. Background colour, crop ratio, camera direction, written down once and applicable to one person a year later without coordinating anything.

If reproducing it requires organising anything, it will not happen — a single headshot is too small a task to justify the effort.

The question to ask any vendor

What does adding one person in fourteen months look like, step by step? If the answer involves scheduling, what you are buying is a snapshot.