Curcio Mirzaian Sirot LLC

Team & Staff

Ben Curcio and I were in the same networking group. He came to me because the firm needed a proper team photo, something that would hold up on their website and in their marketing materials. The team at that point was around eight people, a mix of attorneys and support staff who were serious about how they presented themselves to clients.

The question Ben had upfront was a fair one: why a composite, and is the extra process worth it for a firm our size?

The short answer is that a traditional team photo works fine right up until someone new joins. Then you have two options: either you ask ten people to stop billing for an afternoon so one new person can be added to the group shot, or you live with a team photo that doesn't match the team anymore. Neither is a great option for a busy law firm where every hour has real value.

With a composite, a new team member comes in on their own, gets photographed against a consistent background, and drops into the existing image. Nobody else has to be there. The existing photo doesn't get redone. The update takes a fraction of the time and cost of starting over.

That argument made sense to Ben in theory. Then the roster changed for the first time, and it made sense in practice.

What Happened Over the Years

The firm wasn't static. Over time, partners joined and roles evolved. The team photo that started at around eight people eventually grew to fourteen. Each change was handled as an individual session: one person at a time, photographed to match the existing composite, dropped in without disrupting anyone else's schedule.

What made it interesting was that it wasn't just headcount changes. Some of the attorneys went through significant personal changes during that stretch. Weight loss. Major hair and style changes. Someone who had been clean-shaven for years came back with a completely different look. In a traditional team photo, you'd just keep the old image until someone decided it was time for a full reshoot. Here, anyone who wanted to update their own image could come in and do exactly that, without touching the rest of the composite.

That turned out to matter more than expected. People are more motivated to keep a team photo current when updating it only affects them.

When the Photographer Moved to North Carolina

By the time the firm needed another update, I had relocated to North Carolina. The client was in New Jersey. A traditional team headshot arrangement falls apart at that point, but the composite system doesn't have to.

I briefed a photographer colleague in New Jersey on exactly how to photograph the new additions: the lighting setup, the background, the camera distance, the posing approach, everything needed to match what was already in the composite. She delivered the new team members to spec, I received the files in NC, and the updated images dropped into the existing composite without any visible inconsistency.

That's the part that doesn't get talked about enough with team photography: a well-built composite is a system, not just a photo. It can be maintained, extended, and updated by anyone who understands the specs. The firm got a team image that stayed current across years of change, multiple states, and a rotating cast of contributors, without ever having to pull everyone into a room at the same time.