Corporate photography along the Golden Corridor
Schaumburg holds more office space than any other suburb in the Chicago metro. We photograph teams on site in it, in the towers off Martingale and Woodfield and out along I-90.
Locals call the I-90 belt the Golden Corridor, and Schaumburg anchors it. The village carries more than twelve million square feet of office space, close to a third of the northwest submarket, which is itself the largest suburban office market in the metro. The density is unusual: within a few minutes of the Woodfield interchange you have the twin buildings of Woodfield Corporate Center on North Martingale Road, the three towers of Schaumburg Corporate Center on Woodfield Road, Zurich North America's own campus on Zurich Way, and the Motorola Solutions campus. Woodfield Mall and the Streets of Woodfield sit in the middle of it, which is why so many of these buildings market themselves on amenity rather than address.
This is a market in motion rather than a settled one, and that is the part worth knowing. The northwest submarket carries the highest vacancy in suburban Chicago and was also the only submarket to post positive absorption in the last full year, which means tenants are moving rather than sitting still. Zurich built its own headquarters here in 2016 rather than leasing. Arthur J. Gallagher moved its headquarters back to Rolling Meadows in 2017 after twenty six years in Itasca. The old Sears campus at Prairie Stone in Hoffman Estates has been sold and is being redeveloped into data centers. Every one of those moves puts a team into a room it has never been photographed in.
Where Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor works
Almost every session happens on site, in your own building. Knowing the room before I arrive is part of what keeps the day on schedule.
Woodfield and Martingale Road
The core. Woodfield Corporate Center's two Class A buildings sit at the interchange, with Schaumburg Corporate Center's three towers a few minutes away on Woodfield Road. Structured parking, big floor plates, and conference rooms with far better daylight than most downtown floors.
Zurich Way
Zurich North America's own campus, opened in 2016 and built to LEED Platinum, three offset stacked bars on forty acres. Purpose-built headquarters photograph differently from leased floors, and the architecture is usually worth putting in the frame.
The Motorola Solutions campus
Mid-century modern, and one of the few buildings out here with genuine architectural pedigree rather than nineties glass. Worth an environmental portrait if the client has access to the tower and annex.
Rolling Meadows, Golf Road
Arthur J. Gallagher's headquarters anchors the Meadows Corporate Center stretch. Insurance and brokerage, which in practice means a lot of people who need a current portrait and have not had one made since the last reorganization.
Hoffman Estates and Prairie Stone
The Sears campus has been sold and is coming down for data centers. The wider Prairie Stone area still carries corporate tenants, and the whole district is in the middle of a change that is worth documenting while it happens.
Elgin and Huntley, the outer corridor
Precision manufacturing and machine tool companies out at the far end of I-90. Shop floors, robotics cells and engineers, which makes for far better film material than another meeting room.
What Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor is built on
The sectors that define this market, and what each one usually needs.
Insurance
Zurich North America runs its campus in Schaumburg and Arthur J. Gallagher its headquarters in Rolling Meadows. Finance and insurance is one of the larger employment categories in the village.
Large repeatable headshot programs across several floors, refreshed on a cycle, with a standard that survives a reorganization.
Telecom and technology
Motorola Solutions still runs its Schaumburg campus, and the corridor's IT and telecom employment has been one of its defining categories since the corridor got its name.
Engineer and leadership portraits, plus lab and facility film for recruiting into a market where everyone is hiring from everyone else.
Precision manufacturing
The machine tool cluster spreads across Schaumburg, Elgin, Rolling Meadows and Hoffman Estates, with companies including Mori Seiki, FANUC Robotics, Amada and BIG Kaiser.
Shop floor and process film, operator portraits, and product photography made where the machine actually runs rather than in a studio.
Logistics and distribution
Proximity to O'Hare and the I-90 and I-290 interchange makes this a natural base for transportation and logistics tenants, which is reflected in the tenant mix across the Martingale buildings.
Facility and fleet imagery, plus team photography across several sites made to one standard.
What we make in Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor
Headshot programs are usually the first project. They are rarely the only one.
Corporate headshot programs
Whole teams photographed on site in one or two days, to one standard.
Learn MoreExecutive portraits
Leadership portraits with the weight the business expects.
Learn MoreBrand films and campaign video
Directed, filmed and edited by one person, from scope to delivery.
Learn MoreRecruiting and culture video
For a corridor where everyone is hiring from everyone else.
Learn MoreFacility and manufacturing photography
Shop floors, labs and process work made where it happens.
Learn MoreConference and event coverage
Sessions, keynotes and headshot booths at corporate events.
Learn MoreWhy it matters in Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor
A company that has just changed buildings has a visual library made somewhere else. The conference room is different, the light is different, and the backdrop in the old headshots does not exist any more. Along this corridor that describes a lot of companies at once. The useful moment is after everyone is settled in the new space and before the website relaunch that usually follows, which is when one production day can rebuild the whole set.
Buildings we work in around Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor
Each has its own page: what the building is, who is there, and what a session in it involves.
Woodfield Corporate Center
425 and 475 North Martingale Road, Schaumburg, IL
Two Class A buildings at the Woodfield interchange, and the address more Schaumburg teams give than any other. If yours is one of them, this is how a session here runs.
Schaumburg Corporate Center
1475, 1501 and 1515 Woodfield Road, Schaumburg, IL
Two fourteen story towers and a low rise building on Woodfield Road, rebuilt to Class A+ and filling fast. If your team is in one of the three, this is how a session here runs.
Hamilton Lakes Business Park, Itasca
300 and 500 Park Boulevard, One Pierce Place and 150 Pierce Road, Itasca, IL
A master planned park of about three and a half million square feet at the Elgin-O'Hare and I-355 junction, with a hotel and an athletic club inside it. If your team is in one of the Park Boulevard or Pierce Road buildings, this is how a session here runs.
Buildings and districts we work in around Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor
On site at your own office, wherever that is.
What every session includes
The same standard in every city, because it is the same photographer in every city.
Direction people relax into
Most people dread being photographed. I demonstrate, they mirror, and the guarded expression is gone in about thirty seconds.
Real-time review
Every frame appears on a tethered monitor as we shoot, so nobody leaves the room wondering how it went.
One consistent standard
The same lighting and framing used in every other city you operate in, so the team page holds together.
Professional retouching
Every final image is edited personally. You look like yourself, on a good day.
Photography and video in one visit
Filmed in 4K, which means a production day hands back a still library as well as the film.
On site at your office
The full setup travels. A conference room or an open corner is enough, and your team never leaves the building.
Henry is based in St. Louis and grew up on the North Shore, so Chicago is not a market he had to learn. Programs out along the Golden Corridor are scheduled as full days, and the travel is quoted as a line item rather than buried in a per-person rate.
Chicago companies we work with
We already photograph for firms headquartered here
Johnson + Krol is a Chicago labor and employment firm, and its attorneys are our clients. When the firm opened an office in another state, the brief was not to give the new attorneys a look. It was to match the one already running on its Chicago bios: green canvas, relaxed clothing, warm frontal light. That session was photographed at the firm's St. Louis office, which is the point worth making here. Matching an established Chicago standard frame for frame, from another state, is a harder test than starting from scratch would have been.
IWR North America is a building enclosure contractor founded in St. Louis in 1895. The company describes itself as headquartered in the Midwest with satellite offices in Dallas and Chicago. We built the headshot program that runs across IWR and its parent holding company, MHS Legacy Group: more than thirty people on one standard, with new hires still matching the originals.
Trusted by leading organizations
Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor questions
What teams in this market usually ask first.
Can you photograph a whole floor in one day?▼
We have just moved buildings. When should we shoot?▼
Do you cover Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows and Elgin as well?▼
Can you film as well as photograph on the same visit?▼
What do you need from us on the day?▼
Planning something in Schaumburg and the Golden Corridor?
Tell me the headcount, the buildings and the dates. A proposal follows a short conversation, and questions are answered within one business day.