Shooting Business Headshots

I was recently asked to shoot, what would turn out to be, a Headshot Marathon.

By day I am a product photographer for a big ecommerce company in London. I have plans to do a series of posts on shooting and editing product images, so make sure to subscribe to the blog if you're interested.

In the meantime though I thought I would talk about a recent assignment at work. I was asked to shoot headshots for the company staff which turned out to be a challenging experience. 

Let me get the technical side out of the way first because I know some people will be interested:

As you can see my light set up was fairly simple. I placed one soft key light on camera right using a 1m softlighter, one hair light on camera left to give some hair and jaw line shape, and one background light which is hiding behind the fill reflector. This is the lighting diagram:

My camera (5DmkII) settings were 85mm, iso 100, f2.8, 1/125. 

So now that you know the technical stuff I wanted to talk about the experience of having to fire through 70 plus headshots in a couple of hours.

I share the technical stuff briefly because that really wasn't the challenge on the day. The tough part of this assignment was the fact that I was given between 30-60 seconds with each person, and most really weren't that keen to have their photo taken. How was I going to get a rapport going, relax the subject, set up the shot, dial in the lighting, organise a pose, and capture, in half a minute, all the while having the distraction of their friends and colleagues looking on and cracking jokes, making the subject just want to run a mile? 

Well it didn't start off well to be honest.

The first few I took I immediately felt the pressure of making this experience as painless as possible for my reluctant subjects, and I rushed the shots. I have a strong empathy for people, and feel uncomfortable myself if I am the source of their discomfort as a photographer. I feel this failing often when shooting portraits with people and know I need to overcome it, and this day turned out to be a bit of a breakthrough. After I had cracked through the first 4 or 5 headshots, I had a moment of epiphony.

I may have thought I was being compassionate by rushing them through, but I was actually doing these people a disservice.

It was a case of short term / long term goals. In the short term I could have argued that I was helping them by making the process as brief as possible; but in the long term I was taking pictures which were not as good as they could be. The pictures would last. The discomfort they felt would only be extended by seconds and it could mean the difference between an image they like of themselves, and one they never use or look at willingly again. The answer is not to rush and get them out of the firing line of my lens because they are squirming a bit, the answer is to keep the big picture in mind and help get them a great image which they will get a lot of mileage out of.

That doesn't mean I should just ignore their discomfort though.

After getting the first 10 or so done, I found myself quickly developing a 'shtick'; a routine with each person which would quickly relax them, give them the info they needed, and keep them from overthinking the whole thing. 

It went something like this: 

"Hi. 

Don't worry. We'll make this quick and painless for you. I promise it will be worth it. We've been getting great images all morning.

Can you just write your full name on this sheet for me so I can match your name to the image afterwards?

Thanks.

Take a seat up on the stool for me and face your shoulders towards this light here." 

Gesture to the key light.

"Turn your face to me a little.

Great."

Take a shot.

"See it's not that painful."

Take a second shot as they inevitably smile at that comment, even if just to be polite. Now you have the ball rolling.

"These are looking great."

Make small adjustments between shots to work on the pose and expression, keeping it light and casual. If the subject is very rigid and struggling then I would try this little trick:

"Ok lets try this. Close your eyes. I'm going to count to 3 and on '3' you are going to open your eyes and look right into my lens. 1. 2. 3."

The trick with this is to catch the eyes in the moment between their widest and before they settle. I find there is a moment of honesty before your face works out how to cover for you. It may sound odd, but I find it works for me. Give it a go.

"That was really good. Thank you. I'll let you know when the images are ready. You've been great."

That takes me to nearly a minute and the good thing is I have been giving clear directions, taking shots, and reassuring the subject the entire time. I found that the less dead space there was, the less opportunity there was to feel self conscious. As the session continued I was coming up with banter which hit more often and phrases which got my suject to the expression I wanted more efficiently. It was a great, compact learning experience to have to get through so many, so quickly, not that I hope to repeat it soon.

If you want to see a master of Headshot Photography check out Peter Hurley's DVD The Art Behind the Headshot for some amazing tips on posing your subject and getting the best expression out of them.

Here are some more shots from the day:

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Steal like an Artist

I'm an avid blog reader.

I never studied photography, but fortunately we live in a day and age where it's possible to teach yourself anything, if you're willing to put in the time to find credible sources online, and follow along for those nuggets of info which will take you to the next level.

I recently did a photography day with a group of friends here in London. We hired a studio for the day between the four of us and then set about trying to fill slots with potential clients.

It promised to be an interesting mix of people coming through.

At one point I was shooting a local band named "Shawn Sanderson and the Charm Offensive". With four people standing in front of me waiting for me to tell them what to do I found myself immediately accessing countless shots and tutorials from Zack Arias, who is a Photographer based out of Atlanta, and has a ton of experience with Band Photography. It was then that I realised that his blogs (and many other besides) are slowly providing me an arsenal of solutions for different situations. It's very hard come up with a brand new shot from scratch so it often helps to have a catalogue of set ups in your head so you at least have a starting point. I threw up two lights to blow the background white, trying to remember my exposure numbers as I was dialing it in. I then used a 1m Octa as my key light; something I have seen Zack do on a tutorial before. I didn't have a nice reflective polyboard for the floor, but swapping a drop shadow for his nice reflective touch, I found I was pretty close to something I liked and could just tweak from there.

Here is one of my shots of Shawn Sanderson and co:

...and this is one of Zack's shots which I had in mind while shooting:

Later on in the day I had booked an up and coming Lawyer who was looking for some corporate headshots. This time my mind went into 'Peter Hurley' mode. I tried to mimmick the clean look of his white background lighting. I remembered that he lights his female subjects with flat even light, but uses side light for his male headshots to accentuate shape. I also remembered his 'kicker' light on the jawline to give a bit of separation.

I tried to coach the subject through different expressions leading him to something which would be flattering but natural. I had Peter's voice in my head reminding me about "eyes, eye brows, mouth". I used his 'suction cup' technique to move the head, and even spoke about 'the squint'; all things you'd be familiar with if you follow his work. The only thing I lacked was his bullet prood self confidence, but I think that takes more time to master.

Here is one of mine from the day:

...and here is one of Peter's shot which I had in mind:

I posted the image on Twitter and tagged Peter, who was kind enough to respond with:

I'll take the compliment, and he's absolutely right about the expression (unsurprisingly), so I'll have to work on it more next time.

My point is: don't feel bad about using techinques you learn from others as a spring board. It sounds strange but I had a moment that day where I wondered if I was cheating by using all this knowledge I had learned from others so blatantly, but then I realised that you're never going to begin your career in photography with a fully formed identity and style. You have to start by imitating those you admire and learning skills from them which you can apply to your own work and create your own voice over time.

Obviously it's important to develop your own voice, but there is nothing wrong with 'transcending and including' as you go along. Start by building an RSS feed of voices you trust and people you want to learn from, and then read regularly, and build in time to experiment with the techniques so they are hidden in your mental bag of tricks when you need them most. If you want to track what I'm reading follow me on Twitter (@seantuck) because I make a point of sharing links which I have found interesting.

Good luck with your own learning.

Stick with it.

Follow the gurus.

Steal like an artist.

...and remember to be generous to those who have just started their own journey. Give them all the info you can. If they become a better photographer than you, it was likely always going to happen, and at least your will be credited as a generous contributor, rather than an insecure competitor.