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What are my Headshot sessions all about ?
I start off my sessions with an explanation about I’m going to do.
I shoot using 5 lights, 2 strobe & 3 continuous. The 2 strobes are aimed at the white backdrop and perform 2 functions. Firstly, they whiten the backdrop. Secondly, they splash a little bit of light along the subjects jawline to help highlight that area. The 3 continuous lights are arranged in a triangle so as to light your face completely.
There are a number of things that I concentrate on when I am shooting headshots.
Firstly, the jawline. Jutting the jawline out towards the camera and then lowering the chin has the effect of tightening the skin along the side of the jaw and gives you the appearance of having a really tight jawline with no double, triple chins.
The lowering of the chin has two major benefits, firstly it hides any extra skin that you may have under there but then it also gives you slight humbling look which is really beneficial so that you don’t look arrogant or snobish.
Secondly, the eyes need to squint a little. If you have your eyes wide open and stare at the camera you can come across as vague, out to lunch or end up looking like a deer in the headlights. You need to have a look that says I’m engaged with and interested in the onlooker. The best way to do that is by having a slight squint in your eyes. Its really just raising the lower lids.
Thirdly, the mouth. There are a range of different smiles that you can have from a large smile, half smile, small smile or a closed mouth smile. What I do is find a level of smile that suits 3 things, your personality, your face & your profession. Your smile I believe has to be a reflection of your personality, it also has to suit your face. To add to that, its no good having a super huge smile if for example you are a lawyer or an accountant because you want the onlookers to take you seriously. You need to find a level of smile that suits your profession as well.
During this process I am looking for your angle & also your side. Everybody has a side that is a little bit stronger that the other. With some people it is really obvious which is their stronger side, for others not so. These people are lucky because you can turn them in either direction and they will still look good.
This whole process takes approximately 90 minutes and 130 shots. During this process we stop and review the images and we also stop to change tops, hair styles etc.
At the end of the session when we are happy that we have enough images we go through the selection process. This is a detailed analysis of the images and a narrowing down until we can find the best ones.