Everyone has a camera in their pocket during a team building day, and almost nobody uses it beyond two selfies. A photo challenge changes that in one sentence: "You have until 5 pm to complete these fifteen tasks." Phones come out, teams start searching, negotiating and staging themselves, and the event gallery fills up on its own.
This guide covers the principle, a twenty-minute setup, fifteen ready-made tasks sorted by moment of the day, and what to do with the photos once the challenge is over. It complements the article on 7 smartphone photo activities, which covers the live wall, the quiz and the video recap.
Why a challenge works where "send us your photos" fails
Asking participants to send their photos doesn't work, and it is not a tooling problem. The request comes after the fact, without a precise brief, when everyone is back to their own urgencies. A challenge flips all four parameters.
A mission instead of a request. "Photograph three colleagues you had never met" is a brief you can complete in thirty seconds. "Send us your photos" is not one.
A time limit. The end time creates urgency. A six-hour challenge collects more than an open reminder left running for three weeks.
A leaderboard. Even a symbolic one triggers competition between teams. It is the teams, not the organisers, who will chase the stragglers.
One place. Every photo lands in the same gallery, filed by task, during the event. The following Monday, internal comms has nothing left to collect.
The result shows in participation numbers. At a team building day with no set-up, 20 to 30% of participants share at least one photo. With a challenge announced on the mic and a leaderboard on display, you regularly pass 60%.
Set up the challenge in twenty minutes
1. Create the shared gallery. A web gallery reached through a QR code, with no app or account for participants and no dependency on the IT department. Evokly for companies is built for this: the gallery and its QR code are generated when the event is created, and the article on centralising offsite photos without IT explains why an external tool is the right call.
2. Pick 8 to 12 tasks. Choose from the list below according to the venue and the programme. With Evokly's built-in challenges, available from the Event plan, you tick them in the event settings. Each participant then gets their own selection when they open the gallery, drops one photo per task, and sees the leaderboard of who completed the most. Photos are filed under the matching task, which makes the final sorting unnecessary.
3. Print the QR code and the list. The code on the tables and at reception, the task list on an A4 sheet on each table or in the programme. The event QR code guide covers size and placement.
4. Announce it on the mic, with the end time. This is the step everyone skips and the one that makes all the difference. Thirty seconds at the start of the day, a reminder at lunch, and the leaderboard announcement at the close.
5. Plan a symbolic prize. The leaderboard alone motivates, but a prize gives the final announcement a reason to exist: a photo book of the event for the winning team, pride of place in the group photo, an internal goodie.
The 15 tasks
The tasks are grouped by moment of the day. Take two or three per group for a full day, one per group for an evening.
Icebreakers, for the first hour
1. Three strangers. A selfie with three colleagues you had never met before today. The most effective task on the list for mixing departments.
2. The lookalike. Two people who look alike, wear the same colour or have the same haircut, side by side.
3. Same year. A photo with someone who joined the company the same year as you. You have to ask, that is the point.
Creative, for the quiet moments
4. The shadow. A photo where only people's shadows appear. Perfect for those who dislike being photographed.
5. The reflection. The venue seen in a reflection: a window, a puddle, a spoon, a pair of glasses.
6. The detail. A detail of the venue nobody has noticed. Participants finally look up from their phones to find it.
7. The hidden logo. Recreate the company logo with whatever is at hand: cutlery, badges, people seen from above.
Team, for the afternoon
8. The pyramid. The whole team in a composition that fits one frame: pyramid, staircase, lined up by height.
9. The jump. The whole team in the air at the same moment. Expect five attempts before the good one.
10. Hands. All the team's hands together in the centre, seen from above. A task without faces, done in ten seconds.
11. The relay. A photo that recreates the pose of a photo posted by another team, with one extra element. Teams will go and look at what the others are doing in the gallery.
Venue and activity
12. The viewpoint. The venue photographed from the highest point you can safely reach.
13. Action. A photo taken during the workshop where nobody is looking at the camera. The photos most reused afterwards in internal comms come from this task.
End of day
14. The thank-you. A photo with someone who helped you today, with their first name in the caption. This task produces the warmest photos in the gallery and needs no staging.
15. The last one. The last photo of the day, whatever it is. It closes the challenge and provides the closing image of the write-up.
Adapt the challenge to your format
Two-day offsite. Launch seven tasks on day one, eight on day two, with an interim leaderboard in the evening. Day two starts with teams that want to climb the ranking.
Company party. Five or six tasks, all doable in under a minute, announced at drinks with the leaderboard at dessert. Avoid team tasks, groups form and dissolve throughout an evening.
Hybrid or remote teams. The "detail", "reflection" and "shadow" tasks can be done from anywhere. A remote challenge over a week, one task a day, gets home-working colleagues out of their usual frame.
Large groups, 200 people and up. Play in teams, never individually, and cap it at six to eight tasks. A team covers the tasks between several people, and the team leaderboard stays readable. On a plan with unlimited contributors, photo volume is not a problem.
After the challenge
At the close. Show the leaderboard and the organisation's three favourite photos. Two minutes on the mic, with the prize for the winning team. This is when the participants who sat it out regret it, and when they scan the QR code to see the gallery.
Within the week. Send a best-of sorted by task, fifteen to twenty photos, with a one-line caption per task. The article on 7 photo activities details the newsletter format and the collective mosaic, two natural follow-ups to the challenge.
Within the year. Photos from the "action" and "thank-you" tasks feed the careers site, recruitment posts and the welcome booklet. They are authentic, they show colleagues who are not posing, and they were taken with their active participation. Just check that retention stays consistent with that use. The guide on event photo retention periods gives the benchmarks, one to three years for internal communications.
FAQ
How do I run a photo challenge at a team building day?
Create a shared gallery reached through a QR code, pick 8 to 12 tasks that fit the venue and the programme, announce the challenge on the mic with an end time, and show the leaderboard at the close. With Evokly's built-in challenges, each participant gets their own selection when they open the gallery and the photos are filed under the task they completed. Setup takes about twenty minutes.
How many tasks should I plan?
Between 8 and 12 for a full day, 5 or 6 for an evening. Beyond that, participants stop reading them. Mix easy tasks that take thirty seconds with two or three that need the whole team.
Do participants need an app for a photo challenge?
No. A web gallery reached through a QR code is enough: participants scan with their phone camera, the gallery opens in the browser and they drop photos task by task. No install, no account, which matters for employees who refuse to put a work app on their personal phone.
How do I involve people who don't like being photographed?
Include tasks without faces: a detail of the venue, an object, a shadow, a photo from behind or of hands. The quietest participants often complete the most tasks when the brief doesn't force them to pose. Remind everyone that they can ask for any photo they appear in to be removed.
What should I do with the photos after the challenge?
Show the leaderboard and the three best photos at the close, then send a best-of within the week with the photos sorted by task. The photos stay in original quality in the gallery, ready for the internal newsletter, the company social network or the HR write-up. Keep them for a period consistent with that purpose, one to three years in general.
Does a photo challenge work with 200 people?
Yes, as long as you play in teams rather than individually and cap it at 6 to 8 tasks. A team leaderboard drives the competition, and each team organises itself to cover every task. On a plan with unlimited contributors, the photo volume is not a constraint.
In short
A photo challenge takes twenty minutes of preparation and one announcement on the mic. In return, it fills the gallery during the event, mixes departments, gets the quiet ones involved through the faceless tasks, and leaves internal comms with a stock of sorted, reusable photos. Pick eight to twelve tasks from the list, set the end time, show the leaderboard. The teams do the rest.