Top 10 Tips For Corporate Headshots

So you’ve decided you need a new corporate headshot. Great!

I’ve got years of experience taking corporate headshots and I’ve learned a few things along the way, through practice and training. Here are ten things that will help you attain a killer corporate headshot. Nail all ten and you’ll be set.

1. Great Lighting

The most important feature of a great headshot is lighting. It’s all well and good making sure your outfit, hair and face all look their best, but if the lighting is bad, it’s not a worthwhile exercise. Hiring an experienced professional headshot photographer is a surefire way to get a headshot with lighting that helps you look your best.

2. Simple Outfit Choice

Your outfit shouldn’t be distracting. A headshot is about the person, not the clothes they’re wearing, so make sure you’re not wearing anything too bright or busy.

3. Breathe!

You should look confident and relaxed. But that’s the hardest thing to achieve. Most people don’t like having their photo taken, and that’s totally understandable. Unless they were a model, in which case it would be a little strange! The skill of the best headshot photographers is to help their subject relax and almost forget that they’re having their photo taken at all.

4. Composition

A lot of people think a headshot is a photo from the waist upwards, but that’s not the case.  A good corporate headshot should show the head and shoulders. Anything below the shoulders doesn’t really belong in a headshot.

5. A Distraction-free background

A distraction-free background is really important. Like the outfit, the background shouldn’t draw the viewer’s eye more than the subject themselves. Of course it doesn’t have to be a completely plain background. Sometimes the background can show the context of where the person is, but it should be sufficiently out of focus not to draw attention away from them.

6. The right expression

It sounds obvious, but the right facial expression counts for a lot. If you want people to do business with you, your expression should be friendly but usually not a full-on wide smile. You should come across as approachable yet professional.

7. It’s all in the eyes

People look at the eyes first when they look at a portrait photo. So the eyes should be perfectly in focus, and that’s the photographer’s responsibility. What can you do to make your eyes look good? It’s easy when you’re being photographed to be concentrating so much on not blinking that you end up with eyes wide open, which is not a great look for a headshot. In order to not look like a deer in the headlights, try squinting your eyes just a little. It might feel a little strange but it will help you look better in the resulting photo.

8. Your Posture

Your pose can say a lot about you too. It’s easy to feel a bit stiff when you get in front of the camera. As before, it’s the job of your photographer to help you loosen up and find the right posture for you. Small changes in your posture and pose can make a massive difference in the resulting photo.

9. Look after yourself

Another important factor in making sure you get a great headshot is all in your hands. Getting a good night’s sleep before your headshot session really helps you look and feel your best, which will show up in your headshot.

10. A great jawline

In the best headshots you will notice the person has a well-defined jawline. No-one likes having a double chin in their photo, but even for people without a double chin, it’s important to make sure your jawline looks great. Moving your chin towards the camera and down can really help with that. It might feel uncomfortable but it works great.

Why You Need A Great Corporate Headshot More Than Ever

One of the societal effects of Covid-19 is that more and more people are working from home. As some businesses try to move back into their offices, many have realised that the way they use an office may have changed forever. The lockdown(s) has forced companies to adapt to their employees working from home, and they may have now realised that their business is still just as, if not more productive than it was before. People are being trusted to work from home, so when the pandemic is over, office and business life may never be the same again.

With remote working more accepted than ever before, and lots of new small businesses springing up as people explore new income streams, it’s important to look after your online image. A key part of your online image is your profile picture, so having a great headshot is crucial.

It’s an old cliché about interviews that the interviewer makes up their mind about the interviewee within the first few seconds of meeting them, based on their appearance and manner. It’s no different online, with people making snap judgments about whether they would like to do business with a person within seconds of seeing their profile picture. So it’s important to make the best impression you can with your headshot.

Browse through LinkedIn and you’ll see a huge range of profile pictures; ranging from great headshots to poorly lit selfies. Who do you think most people would do business with? A great corporate headshot helps your profile stand out from the crowd, encourages people to connect with you, and most importantly tells people that you take yourself and your career seriously.

Whether on LinkedIn, another social media platform or your own website, people are deciding if they want to do business with you partly based on your image.

A great corporate headshot can tell potential clients that you understand what it takes to portray the right image online. It can show people you mean business, but at the same time can show off some of your personality. You can even have multiple different headshots for different purposes; one very serious headshot for instances when gravitas is needed, one where you’re really smiling which shows your fun and approachable side and maybe one somewhere in between. That’s before trying different outfits, which, even in a head and shoulders headshot can show off a different side to your character to the viewer.

If you think it’s time to book a corporate headshot session, I am available, although the location for shoots may change depending on the ever-changing government Covid-19 restrictions. Please get in touch for more information about organising a shoot.

Bright & Colourful Headshots With Gels

Way back in March of 2020, which feels longer than a year ago despite only being 7 or 8 months ago, I was contacted by a business looking for some headshots with a difference. This business, PMM, a real estate asset manager was going through a rebranding process, and to fit in with their new branding, they wanted their staff photographed in a colourful style.

I was excited by the prospect and jumped at the chance to do something a little different to the norm. PMM has now finished its rebrand and is now know as QSix.

The rebranding project was done by an agency, so they provided me with a creative brief and I took their guidance on the exact look they wanted for the images. I was really pleased with how they came out. You can see some of the images below and also see them in context on the QSix website.

This project took more than 6 months to complete because we had scheduled the shoot in two parts so all the team could make it, but before the second shoot date took place, the Covid-19 lockdown began. So we had to wait until September, at which point the government’s advice was for people to go back into work at offices, for the second date to take place. It was a relief to get the project finished, particularly as there was a deadline for the new website going live!

Location Headshot Photography: The Gear

Up until now I have always used this blog as a showcase of recent work and projects, but as there haven’t been any recent jobs because of the whole Covid-19 situation, I thought I should use the blog for some other subjects.

Anyone who has known me well for a long time will tell you that I’ve always been a bit of a gadget freak. It’s for that reason that I’ve always enjoyed the technology side of photography. Buying new photography equipment has always scratched my gadget-needing itch and I love keeping up to date with the latest developments. So I thought I would create a video that shows you the equipment I use to take corporate headshots on location for my clients across London.

I’ve gone through, and no doubt will continue to go through, lots of iterations of this gear. The aim is to end up with a combination of kit which is the perfect mixture of delivering the highest quality results and portability, because I travel to 95% of my jobs on public transport, in a non-Coronavirus world.

Photographers, if you have any questions for me, drop a comment below the video and I’ll be happy to answer anything to the best of my knowledge.