What you get by going cheap on your Business Headshot
As a professional Dallas photographer, I specialize in business headshots and executive portraits. I have well over 20 years knowing how to light your face, pose you, and retouch your photos for best results.
By “best results””, I mean photos that get a strong, positive response. One that show you as competent and confident, but also approachable. My photography style is very intentional and strategically optimized to attract more business your way. My clients tell me that the headshots/portraits I provide directly impacts both their respect/influence in their industry and their profits.
What motivated me to write this story is that I was on LinkedIn this morning. I saw the profile photos of executives, I’m talking C-Level and company presidents with downright awful headshot photos. These seem to be people that have achieved a significant level of success and seem to be intelligent and hard-working in their career. Yet, their image is severely lacking.
My examples today, all had a self-proclaimed “professional” photographer take their photo in a photo studio, yet, through no fault of the executive being photographed, the photographer DID IT WRONG. As this is my specialty, it pains me to see these headshot mistakes — incompetent! And this motivates me to share a couple headshot pitfalls I SEE ALL TOO OFTEN, from substandard “professional” photographers.
These photographers are always the CHEAPER ones, and lure unsuspecting business people into their studio with low prices, but that comes with a substandard image that DIMINISHES the results you get in business. They are doing a DISSERVICE, not a service to their “customers” (their victims!).
These executives end up wasting precious time and money on a profile photo that hurts their business opportunities. From my perspective as a portrait / headshot photo studio, I call that ABUSE, not service.
That should not be. Your headshot needs to be done right as an investment in your success — an asset you use to MAKE you money, not scare it away! Enough intro; here are the token examples that irked me today:
Old Style Photo Background
Here we have a slightly murky photo but the worst part is the very DATED background! This makes this young businessman look like he stepped out of the 1980’s. Right out of the gate, you look irrelevant to the business being done today. You might not notice it, but employers and prospects do! It makes you look more stiff and stuffy — antiquated — in contrast to appearing responsive and easy to do business with.
This is the photographer’s mistake, and no one these days should be given an outdated look! The photo is not the right size (pixel dimensions) for LinkedIn, and it is also fuzzy —which only ADDS to the 1980’s look called “soft focus” which was meant to hide skin imperfections back in the film days when retouching was a lot harder to do and very limited in scope.
Don’t ever let a photographer make you appear outdated!
I did four minutes of quickie retouching on the above photo (just to see how much it could be improved), with very limited success on such a low-resolution image. A little sharpening a little brightening of the skin because of the murky image, which then made him look really pale so I added some skin saturation (the results on your monitor might vary). Removing the hair BULGES — something any competent photographer should have noticed and fixed. The result is not great, but it is better. What we want to focus on in this context is, that despite being posed well and looking good in his photo, the outdated background just KILLS his results for seeming relevant to today’s marketplace = FAIL.
Murky and Absorbed into the Background
Any headshot, for business, modeling, acting, etc. has to feature YOU and your face. You must always stand out from the background! I hate murky photos, and your business prospects probably do too. After all, we are trying to see you — you in your best light. I hate what I call the “murder mystery look”. A murky photo simply does not help people see you or feel they can trust you to do business with you!
Unfortunately murky business portraits that don’t separate you for your background are all too common. I’m sure you’ve seen headshots like these when you go to LinkedIn. But this is needless mistake by “professional” photographers delivering amateur results.
We don’t want your photo to have that disembodied face on a sea of darkness appearance! These three people are all good looking in themselves, so the issue is not with them, themselves, but with the terrible photography choices of their cheap photographer.
Seeing Headshots in terms of their Business Value
I’m not here to hate on or disparage any specific photographer, but rather to give you, the headshot client, the distinctions you need when choosing the person that provides the image of you that you present to the world. I’m sure each of these photographers did the best job they were capable of doing. But as the murky results show in these 3 token examples (just 3 of so many I could have chosen), they lack the critical distinctions to make a business headshot a business success.
I deliver value through an unfair advantage — my decades of experience in the advertising agency world. That means that I come to our photoshoot, not simply as a photographer who knows technical aspects about taking a photo, but as an image consultant — someone using my photography skills and know-how to fully serve you with a photo from a visual marketing communications perspective!
What does your headshot “say about you”? Does your headshot succeed making people like you and feel they want to do business with you? Does it resonate and connect with your specific business demographic — your specific prospects and peers. This is how I approach your headshots as an experienced marketing professional.
So, starting left to right:
1. LEFT: An otherwise attractive person whose business image is sabotaged by murky photography. The dark hair with no photographic studio backlight or hairlight to show shape, plus dim lighting too far off to one side (making the heavy shadow on one side of the nose, plus dark wardrobe makes the person seem mysterious and untrustworthy. It is still an attractive person, but a photo that shows them as heavy, depressed and pensive. This does NOT instill confidence in your business prospects and peers. It might work for certain types of artistic portraits, but not in corporate America! Since people do business with those they like and trust, this kind of image connected to you and your business works directly against your opportunities and profits!
You want your headshot to make you “stand out”, well the photographer failed to make him stand out, just the opposite, the photo has a HEAVY feel to it, which undermines his nice smile. This businessman just allowed his image be sabotaged by a cheap photographer that fails to understand corporate photography!
Wardrobe Tip: unless you are in a very serious type of profession — a mortician, an investment banker, or a prosecuting attorney, I don’t recommend wearing actual black. Black usually makes you look heavy and ponderous which is not how you need to look. Some people think that wearing black makes them appear more slender, but that is a MYTH! Dark colors like navy blue or dark grey are a YES, but solid black, USUALLY NO.
2. MIDDLE: Again, in our middle example, the subject is good-looking but photographed in awful, murky lighting. This is supposed to be a business headshot, not some horror movie! This makes the person feel mysterious and untrustworthy. This gives you the impression they don’t care about their images, and will probably be just as sloppy in their business dealings- pushing business they should otherwise get, away! The cheap photographer’s lighting fail ruins an otherwise decent photo.
3. RIGHT: The crop of the right photo example is not right for LinkedIn. You don’t want your face to look small on LinkedIn. That is why, for business headshots and corporate portraits, I always give my clients a version of their headshot that is specifically optimized for LinkedIn — specifically to ensure their photo is crisp and their face is not small. And, yet again, another example of no separation between the person and the background.
It would be easy to find hundreds of similar fails at a business persons online profile photo on LinkedIn that portray the errors I’ve mentioned. The fault is not how the person looks, but that they chose a cheap photographer that either lacks the critical distinctions or does not know how to do business type photography correctly — meaning from a visual marketing communications perspective, or said in a very simple way: “how my photography choices will shape how that client’s audience perceive them and feel about them.”
Even when I need to photography with a darker backdrop and wearing dark clothes, you can see I make sure it is not completely black, but retains detail on the dark jacket. You also see how I make the subject STAND OUT against the darker backdrop. This is an important distinction to make, and this darker style is not recommended for a business headshot, but sometimes works well for editorial style portraits.
Does your headshot forward your business goals? That is the right question. Does your profile photo “say” the right things about you that make you most appealing and compelling to your specific business audience? That right there is what separates a “photographer” — someone with a camera and basic photo skills, from a professional visual marketing communicator — someone image conscious, someone who has mastered the camera, of course, but more than that, who has a keen eye to know which colors, backgrounds, photo styles and lighting techniques BEST MATCH your industry, your peers, and your business prospects. A simple photographer will take a photo — usually a mediocre one. A photographer who understands visual marketing communications will give you the right image that makes you much more money, fun and success! There is a huge difference between the two and my clients VALUE a photo that boosts their success.
How to look contemporary, confident and welcoming in your profile photos
Your business headshot is visual marketing — given both your peers and prospects a sense of what it is like to do business with you. To accomplish this, the wardrobe, attitude, pose, lighting and retouching have to ALL come together.
You can see in her dark blazer, that I’m careful to show definition and detail in the blazer and not let it become some dark blob. This is what keeps even darker wardtobe choices from feeling too heavy and murky. They stay dark without being completely back.
So whether you get your business headshot in my portrait studio or outdoors, as this example shows, (1) get professional lighting on the face (whether natural light, studio light, or a combination of both) and (2) have you stand out from the background. This is the kind of business headshot that shows you as contemporary and professional. Someone with nothing to hide — straightforward and trustworthy. This is the visual image of you that invites a prospect to feel confident in contacting you to initiate a business deal.
If you are in the Dallas, TX area and want attention to detail and better VALUE from your business image, see www.HeadShotPros.com
