Business Headshots— Lighting Your Face
As a leading headshot photographer in Dallas, TX, I’ve had decades of experience in delivering headshots and portrait photography that my clients love. There are many elements that have to come together for a winning photo, but here, we are talking about lighting the face for a business headshot.
Let’s address the number 1 most common problem I see in business headshots — bad lighting. Otherwise attractive person with good posture, pose and wardrobe, but her headshot was ruined by incompetent lighting.
This example photo to the left was not taken by me, but was in a studio with two lights. As we are looking at the photo, the main light is about 45 degrees off to her left. A 2nd studio light is way off to her side. There is nothing balancing out (filling in for) the main light (“key” light) and thus we see all the shadow areas highlighted in orange.
What is so bad about this? It is psychologically bad for her career. Studies show this murkiness on the face make a person come across as UNTRUSTWORTHY despite her nice smile. When people make the mistake of going with a cheap or inexperienced photographer, you get so much VALUE from your headshot ruined in many ways, and this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
Obviously, this business headshot is taken in a studio and with 2 lights. Had that light off to the side (creating the highlite on her temple area that we see on the right as we are looking at the photo), simply been moved to the proper positive, and turned up a bit brighter, the distrustworthy-murkiness and shadowy image, could have been transformed into a MUCH better business headshot. Unfortunately her value was robbed, needlessly, because she went with an incompetent photographer, who had sufficient photo gear, but insufficient smarts to do a contemporary business headshot right.
Your business headshot should not look heavy and ominous, as if the businessperson has something to hide from you. Your business headshot should not look creepy, as if you’re stepping out of the pages of some muder-mystery. Your headshot should covey you are confident and competant to do your job and get positive results for both your employees and their clients.
People don’t like doing business with someone who does not seem on the up and up. Yet, many businesspeople get stuck with a substandard corporate headshots from photographers who don’t fully understand what they need to be doing.
So let’s contrast that with a couple of my headshots — I matched as best as possible with young, blonde businesswomen, so you can see lighting purposely crafted to convey a sense of trust and competence to their business image.
Two lights on the face itself (carefully positioned) fill in any murky shadows that improper lighting causes, and the result is a business headshot that feels like the person has nothing to hide from you. Once you understand this and know how to light the face to reduce shadows, you are well on your way to a successful headshot. Hey, if it were easy, everyone would already be doing it, and while it is a simple in concept, it is one that so many lesser photographers literally fail to see as they look at and light their portrait subject.
This has a direct, positive impact on your business prospects because of the core truth that people do business with those they like and trust. So, knowing this, please don’t work with a fake professional photographer that will DAMAGE your business prospects and number of deals you close, because of the visual psychological message your headshot sends — a message for good or for bad. Choose a true professional for your image, one that can bring it all together, the pose, the attitude… and the lighting for a photo of you that conveys a contemporary image that people naturally feel they can trust and want to do business with. I hope this short tutorial has helped you and more power to your career!
Marcus is a Dallas headshot photographer for both studio and location photography, specializing in corporate and business photography designed to maximize the prosperity of his clients. For pricing and availability, call 877–858–0071. www.DallasBusinessHeadshots.com
