In the modern world of always-online business and communication, presenting yourself in a professional manner on both your work sites/portals and professional networking sites (e.g. Linkedin) can often come as a challenge, especially with how many apps and emails your work can get spread across.
In this day and age, having a professional headshot is all but necessary to present both yourself and your personal qualities and strengths to your boss and colleagues.
Getting a professional headshot though can often come with an assortment of inconveniences and headaches, as you have to take the time out of your day to schedule an appointment, dress up in often uncomfortable business attire, not to mention the expensive costs that come with getting professional headshots, as high-end headshot sessions can often exceed $200 or more. Additionally, as more and more people begin and continue to switch to hybrid workflows, or move to working from home entirely, they may begin to see the idea of having or needing professional headshots as a priority.
An alternative that has become more popular in recent years is taking your own personal headshots, largely possible due to the ever-increasing quality of smartphone cameras. But even with a good phone camera, you may not be sure what to do or even where to start when it comes to taking your own headshots at home. Not to worry though, we’ve provided a few tips below to help you take your best headshots in the convenience and comfort of your own home.
1. What to Wear
Attire: For professional headshots, it is best to wear what you would be expected to wear at your workplace. Your headshot is what will represent you first and foremost in the minds of both your colleagues and your boss, so wearing the proper and appropriate attire is always best.
Makeup and Jewelry: In addition to the proper attire, it’s also best to wear a minimal amount of makeup and jewelry. Your headshot should have your face as the primary focus; applying too much makeup or wearing an excessive amount of jewelry will draw the eyes away from your pose, which renders your headshot pointless.
Head and Facial Hair: For those with facial hair, it’s recommended to shave a day or two prior to taking your photos, as shaving immediately before taking the headshots can pose the risk of razor bumps or blemishes appearing in the photos. Likewise, you want to make sure that your hair is styled as you normally wear it, and is combed or brushed neatly.
Facial Expression: You may be tempted to exaggerate or force a facial expression – such as a smile – when taking your headshots. While this may initially seem like a good idea to try to strike a good impression with your photos, it will likely come off as fake and off putting in the final product. For the best result, always use a relaxed but authentic facial expression. This can include anything from a neutral expression to a big smile; the important factor is that it is authentic and comfortable. More on facial expressions later.
Posture: Likewise, it’s best to pose with proper posture for your professional headshots. This means straightening out your back, along with lowering and bringing back your shoulders. The last thing you want to do is look like you’re hunched over.
Glasses: If you choose to wear glasses for your headshot, make sure there is minimal glare, as any glare reflected off of them will ruin the image. If you find that you are unable to get a proper photo without any glare, it’s best in that case to remove your glasses for the headshots.
2. Find the Best Spot in Your Home
Background: As with most professional photos, it’s best to find a solid, consistent background to stand in front of for your headshots. Ideally, this would be a section of wall in your home that doesn’t have pictures or shelving on it. Again, the focus of the headshot is yourself, and most importantly, your face, so you want peoples’ attention immediately drawn to you, and not to other elements in the image.
If you do not have an unblemished section of wall in your home to use, try using a semi-consistent background such as a bookcase. A corner between two walls would also work – as long as you are the center of attention in the image. With that being said, while the background is an important element of your headshot, the lighting is equally as important.
Lighting: You have the right attire and appearance, and you’ve found the perfect spot in your home to take the photo, but after taking the photo, you discover your face is completely overlit from the rest of the image. Or worse: your face is underlit and in shadow.
Lighting can make or break any photo, especially a professional headshot. With this in mind, it is important to make sure that your face is properly lit for your photo. While most smartphone cameras can automatically make lighting adjustments on the fly, they can only do so much with what they’re given.
Ideally, you want to use natural lighting when possible for the best results. For most people, this would mean using the indirect natural lighting coming into the home from a window. Unlike artificial lighting used indoors, which can cause you to look overlit and (and thus “unnatural”) in photos, natural, indirect lighting often casts evenly across the body and face, which also creates natural shadows, giving your pose and expression a natural, comfortable look.
If you are unable to use natural lighting, try setting your artificial light source (such as a lamp, but more ideally an LED ring light) to the brightest setting, and point it toward an adjacent wall or the ceiling to diffuse the light. Doing so will mimic the way natural light appears on you in your image. Lastly, avoid direct overhead lighting at all costs, as this will often cast unwanted shadows beneath your nose, mouth and chin, giving an unnatural appearance to your face and expression.
3. If Possible, Have Someone Else Take the Headshots for You
Smartphones: While it’s true that most smartphones now have a serviceable front-facing camera, they can never compare to the quality and accuracy of the larger sensor in your phone’s rear-facing camera. So while the convenience of the front-facing “selfie” camera may be alluring, it’s always best to use the rear-facing camera – especially for your at-home professional headshots.
Additionally, it’s also preferable to have someone else, such as a friend or relative, take the images for you, as this will avoid the awkward “selfie arm” that accompanies selfie shots. You could of course take the images with a selfie stick, but having another person to hold and aim the camera will avoid any potential framing issues all together, giving you one less aspect to worry about.
DSLRs: If you have access to a larger, more professional type camera, such as a mirrorless or DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera, this would be more ideal for headshots than a smartphone, as the camera sensors in mirrorless and DSLR cameras are much larger, allowing for a higher resolution image that can also capture the lighting of the scene better. If you have one of these cameras, it’s best to pair them with some basic photography equipment, such as an LED ring light for better lighting, and a basic camera stand and mount, to both allow for better framing of shots, and to eliminate any shaking or uneven shots caused by holding the camera.
4. Posing for Your headshots
Facial Expression: For the best results when it comes to professional headshots, the best faces to make would be some smiling (both showing teeth and not showing any teeth), and not smiling (as in a neutral/calm expression).
For smiling, it’s best to smile right before the image is actually taken. As some may know from previous photo experiences, posing for an extended period of time while smiling can become exhausting. This is because when we smile, 5 to 53 facial muscles contract in order to allow you to smile. As a result, over time you may begin to force or “fake” your smile, which will be immediately noticeable in any photo.
Because of this, it’s best to set a timer when taking the images (if using a smartphone), or to agree upon a specific word/phrase (e.g. “Say cheese!”) or have the other person taking the image for you do an audible countdown.
Additionally, don’t be afraid to make several attempts when taking the photos, as you want a variety of your natural facial expressions to choose from. This would also be the case if you chose to get in-person professional headshots, as the photographer would likely have you make several different poses and expressions, so that you have a large selection of images to choose from.
For photos without a smile, you want to convey a neutral, yet strong and confident look. This will obviously be different for every person, but like many other aspects of taking photos, the important thing is to pose naturally. Don’t try to force a “strong” or “confident” look, as again this will be immediately noticeable in the images. Likewise, you don’t want to force a “pout” or a potential frown with your mouth.
Angle: For photos taken with either a smartphone or a point-and-shoot/professional camera (but especially for smartphones), it is important to not take any images of yourself with an extreme angle to them. As an example, you wouldn’t want to take an image where you are holding the camera or phone high above your head, or far below your head. Extreme angles are great for your own personal image collection or for posting on social media, but they’re absolutely not appropriate when it comes to professional headshots. If you do choose to take images at an angle, make sure that the angle of the tilt does not exceed 15 degrees.
Body and Face Posture: Many people have one side of their face that they prefer when taking photos (one’s “good side”). If you have one side of your face you prefer for photos, make sure that all of your photos that you end up choosing are of that same side. For those who may be unsure which side of their face is better, or whether or not you may have a preference, try take some test photos of your left and right side of your face, and then one head-on, to see which angle you prefer, if any. Likewise, it’s important not to tilt your head to one side.
As for your body, whether you are sitting or standing for your photos, you want to make sure that you straighten out your back and shoulders as much as possible. Proper posture looks professional! If standing, you’ll also want to try leaning slightly toward the camera (with more weight on your front foot), for a more natural-looking stance. Standing perfectly upright (or “flat-footed”) will cause your stance to look awkward, and therefore less natural.
Get Professional Headshots Quickly and Easily with Portrait Pal
If you’re like many others, you may find the amount of work you need to put in to create your own DIY professional headshots to be more of a hassle and time consuming, and that it outweighs the cost savings from getting headshots done professionally.
With Portrait Pal, generating professional headshots is a breeze. With three affordable headshot sets to choose from, you simply select the package that best matches your needs, then upload some images of yourself (be sure to follow the upload guidelines!), add some required details about yourself (such as Gender, Hair and Eye color, etc.), and you’re done! In just 2-3 hours, you’ll receive an email letting you know your headshots and ready to be viewed and downloaded. It’s as simple as that.
Don’t let the prospect of spending hundreds of dollars or having to spend hours of your own time getting professional headshots worry you. Check out Portrait Pal today and see how easy, simple and affordable it is to get accurate, professional headshots.