Here’s how to create the best board member photo: “Look at regent and militia pieces”
Have you just become a board member of a fraternity or sorority? Then taking a new board photo is essential these days. Folia guides you in four steps toward a representative, professional, and unique board photo.
It was the first thing Wouter Meijer discussed with his fellow board members when he was appointed president of the political study association Machiavelli this academic year. The board photo: Where do we shoot it, what do we wear, what do we take with us?
Richie Jacobs, president of the legal study association JFAS, also rushed to do this. Taking a joint photo immediately became high on the agenda. Why? It’s part of being professional, both say.
“A calling card for (new) members, recruiters, and external partners,” Kian Kashanian adds. He is president of the AkvV, an umbrella body of 25 Amsterdam student associations, where “the board photo” also reigns supreme.
Given its apparent relevance, including in the judgment of those who know from experience, Meijer, Kashanian, and Jacobs, Folia spoke with an Amsterdam (student) tailor and an art conservator to develop a concise manual for prospective student board members. Together, they provide an accurate representation of what a good board photo should look like.
1. Buy a good suit in time (and above all, keep it in one piece!)
What is a board photo without a good suit? Nothing, of course. But what is a good suit? “Crucial is that the suit is well made,” says Jean-Paul Samson of De Oost Bespoke Tailoring, a company that supplies board suits to study and student associations - mainly in Amsterdam. “Otherwise, it will wear out quickly.”
“A classic look for men is to wear a three-piece suit in a board photo,” Samson says. Machiavelli’s male board members wear this, for example, in the photo above this article: a jacket, tie, and cardigan. “The cardigan is often a bit more striking with this combination,” Samson said. “Think, for example, of a stylish dark blue suit and a green cardigan with a stylish plaid pattern so that you remain easily recognizable as a board.”
For women, the pants in particular are usually a point of interest, Samson states. “Especially the style of the pants. Wide-leg pants are now more popular again,” he notes. “In addition, women often want a higher waistband than men.”
No cartwheels
Next, keep the suit in one piece, at least until the board photo. So Samson invariably informs students that they can’t do “all kinds of moves” in their new suits. “You can’t start raising your hands, doing a cartwheel, or hugging each other.” The devil is in the detail, Samson said. “Prevention is better than cure.”
Besides, he continues, if you treat the suit with care—and refrain from doing cartwheels—you can wear it on other occasions, too. “Like to a wedding,” Samson suggests. Be timely, by the way, because ordering a board suit can easily take months. For the JFAS board, for example, it took two months before the suits arrived. “There is a big demand for board suits,” Samson explains. “We have a waiting list.” So don’t dawdle too long!
2. Choose a recognizable location
Has your board suit (finally) arrived? Then it’s time to choose a suitable location. “Recognizability” is the magic word here. You create a sense of déjà vu for the viewer, and can also emphasize the association’s close relationship with the city.
“As student associations, we are fortunate to be in Amsterdam,” says Kashanian. The choice is vast in the capital. So the annual AkvV board photo takes place in a different location in Amsterdam each time: from a room in the Amstel Hotel in board year 2014/15, a lovely canal in 2018/19, to the Skinny Bridge in 2021/22.
Machiavelli president Meijer and his board chose the new building on the IJ, with the distinctive A’Dam tower and the Eye film museum in the north in the background. For recognition, certainly, but also because the tall buildings symbolize “a new start,” he explains. Because a new board inherently also means a new policy for the association.
The specific character of the association
Ideally, the board should ensure that a location also reflects the specific character of the association, Norbert Middelkoop, art curator at the Amsterdam Museum, believes. In concrete terms, this means, for example, that a political study association—such as Machiavelli—should pose at a political center. And a legal study association—like JFAS—at a courtroom.
For a moment, Machiavelli president Meijer considered that. But on reflection, Amsterdam’s city hall, the Stopera, just had too little charisma in the end to serve as a backdrop. His counterparts in The Hague had it easier in that regard, he says. In their city, they could go to the Binnenhof. It’s photogenic, monumental, and seamlessly linked to the character of the political study association in question.
In the courtroom
What about the JFAS? This year their photo was not taken in a courtroom but in the Beurs van Berlage because of its monumental character and location in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the viewer involuntarily gets the feeling that the board members had their portrait taken in an American courtroom. That was unintentional, Jacobs says, “because we didn’t realize in advance that the photo would look like that.”
In any case, that is something associations could think more about, art curator Middelkoop believes. “The space can be a clear reference to the association. But that applies just as much to symbols and objects.”
3. Create an appropriate composition
In short, the composition of the photograph is also important. Middelkoop earned his PhD at the UvA in 2019 on a study of Amsterdam’s archer, regent, and guild paintings and occasionally lectures on the similarities and differences between those paintings on the one hand and today’s board photos on the other.
What strikes him? Certainly, the regent pieces are reminiscent of today’s board photos, Middelkoop says. Usually, there are only about four to eight people in them, in contrast to regent paintings, about the size of a student or fraternity board.
Interesting to note, he says, is that students often tend to stand neatly and clearly in the picture. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but then you can ask yourself if it couldn’t be a little more creative.” He explains further. “I have analyzed some contemporary board photos with a 17th-century view, and only sporadically are references made to the association.”
Symbols and attributes
To illustrate, he continues: “I saw a board photo of a rowing club in their clubhouse—in itself an appropriate location—but in the background, you could see through a small vista that there was a lifebuoy hanging outside. Small symbols like that, related to your club, can make your photo unique and recognizable. I’m a big proponent of that.”
In other words, hang something recognizable from the association on the wall, or hold it in your hand, he suggests. “In old paintings, there were attributes on the table that referred to good governance,” Middelkoop says. “Like paperwork, an inkstand, or piles of coins.”
Interaction
Finally, Middelkoop points out the lack of interaction among the students in the board photos. That opportunity is regularly missed, he believes. “Everyone often tends to look at the photographer, but that can make for a very boring picture.”
In the regents and militia pieces, on the other hand, people are engaged with each other. “Some of them are looking at us, the viewers, others are in the middle of an argument or busy delivering something,” Middelkoop says. “Such details I find enrich the image and make for a much more exciting photograph.”
4. Watch your posture
Once the standard-bearers are ready, the symbols are hanging on the wall, and the people being portrayed are in position, it’s time to strike a pose. But what is the best posture to adopt: arms crossed, hands in pockets, or, as the AkvV has been doing for years, hands behind the back?
Jack de Vries, former spin doctor of the CDA, once revealed the best way to be photographed to De Wereld Draait Door. Since then, former ministers such as Mark Rutte and Hugo de Jong have invariably posed like this on the balcony at important photo opportunities, such as after the formation of a cabinet.
Self-assured and calm
His invention: Hold the index finger of your left hand loosely with your right hand, approximately at waist level. That looks self-assured and calm, and this is exactly the image you should want to portray as a director, according to De Vries. So take advantage of that! However here, too, tradition and individuality are certainly not unimportant, according to art conservator Middelkoop.
