Crain’s 40 Under 40 photos

Time for a humble brag: our studio is so rad, that we were given one of the most esteemed honors in the Chicago photography industry. We were chosen to take all of the photos for this year’s Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40.

If you’re not familiar with it (then you’ve been living under a rock), Crain’s 40 Under 40 list is an annual list of Chicago’s strongest leaders in a variety of industries. They are changemakers, founders, executives, and general awesome heavyweights worth knowing, following, and supporting. Past honorees include names like President Barack Obama in 1993, Oprah Winfrey in 1989, J.B. Pritzker in 2000, and Chance the Rapper in 2016.

And this year, the honorees each came to our West Loop studio for their photos published for the award.

We got to meet some really amazing people, like Ryan Poles, the General Manager of the Chicago Bears; Cory Rothschild at Cresco Labs; Christy George, Executive Director of the DNC host committee; Eric White at Winston & Strawn, and so many more! All 40! Well, actually, 39 because Klaus Mäkelä, the new Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is overseas for a few months. But we still love him.

This is a big deal for us, and if I may, we feel a little bit like #41 on the list for being trusted with the task. Since 2005, Organic Headshots has been serving the Chicago business community by taking powerful images to represent executives and staff in various industries. Our photos have been published, printed, put on billboards, used in successful political campaigns, made into hero and anchor images on websites, turned into foundational images for annual reports, and spread far and wide globally.

After 19 years (we turn 20 in Spring of 2025!) we’ve parked in just about every parking garage and brought our photo equipment up just about every elevator in the Chicago Loop. I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re a Chicago fixture now, and we look forward to continuing to support the best and brightest in Chicago business.

Also it might not have gotten published, but we had to include this moment of the studio dog sneaking into Daniel Wang’s photo: