Rebrand Yourself
Rebrand yourself with a great Headshot
A great headshot cannot be under estimated. Recently i have been browsing websites looking for potential customers in the Real Estate Industry, Car Sales, Solicitors and Insurance industries. The kind of people who invariably put their images on their website or business cards to sell their product or service.
What i found was a large number of business portraits and head shots that were outdated or conveyed the kind of look that resembled a police line up at the local station.
This leads me to the question ...What Makes a Great Headshot?
The important thing is to look for a portrait photographer who can pull out your own personality and not just shoot the image with a few lights and the correct exposure. The most important thing is engaging your client. A lot of my clients immediately express how they don't like their picture taken. Putting them at ease quickly and and giving them the confidence to be in front of the camera is the photographers job.
In a matter of minutes of meeting the client for the first time....you have to put them at ease, find out about them and their business. Understand their face shape and pose them in a way that will be flattering and importantly,‘ convey the right message to their prospective audience.
In business Integrity; honesty; trustworthiness; easy to do business with ...genuine and reliable are all words to describe how i might want my client to think about prior to standing in front of the camera.
Recognising all of these things in a matter of a few minutes can really improve the final result.
I recently had the pleasure of photographing Dave. As you can see from these 3 images Dave's personality really shows through. His pose is confident and professional. You can see that i have photographed him from one side only.
This is because he suited one side better than the other and his transformation was almost complete. The last stage was retouching the image to remove some redness from around his nose, giving him a more even skin tone.
Finally, in most cases a prospective customer will know nothing about you at first point of contact other than your business profile picture. If it isn't professional, if it doesn't convey the right body language then they are less likely to call you for that initial meeting or enquiry.
Johnny Houston, BCM. Professional Commercial Photographer Christchurch, New Zealand
Redbox Photography Limited.