Your Job

Your job and my job strive toward the exact same goal. To produce effective business tools which you may then use to advance your career. Just standing or sitting while “getting your picture taken” may produce a few usable shots, but we can do better than that. Way better.

I’m going to show you what it took me over 30 years to learn about headshots. I got my first headshots taken in 1988, but it wasn’t until I became a photographer and filmmaker that I developed this technique. Whether you choose to employ this technique or not is entirely up to you. Whether you use this technique with me, or whether you use it with another photographer, you will have it for the rest of your life.

What is the key takeaway from this technique? Think of your headshot less like a cool photo of you, and more like a frame of your work.

Approach your headshots like an acting job.

  1. Know what you are marketing.

Make a realistic, educated assessment of your strongest casting probabilities. Be purposeful. Think as a filmmaker, a storyteller, and a casting director. How would you cast this actor that is you? Grab a piece of paper and a pen, and organize these results into archetypes.

2. Know your archetypes.

An archetype is a calculated amalgam of like characters you are marketing. These archetypes will become your looks. You’ve heard of “The Girl Next Door” or “The Blue Collar Guy.” Same idea, but with more detail, intention, and specificity. Give them an occupation, a want, a need, a time, a place. Now you’re getting somewhere. These details matter, exactly the same as when you’re working. This is what you’ve trained for. Use it.

3. Become the Costume Designer.

Dress these archetypes as if they were characters in a film or play you are directing. See them. What do they look like in your mind’s eye? Seek inspiration from your favorite films and shows. Have fun! Most important of all, make sure you feel great in the garments you are wearing.

Keep it civilian. Keep it malleable. No uniforms, no props. Stay away from loud patterns or stripes. Let nothing upstage the main character in the frame.

4. Write the Script.

I’m not talking about writing a screenplay, but do create stories for your archetypes. Commit them to paper. Make them specific. They don’t have to be long, just potent. What these personal stories are should be informed by what you wish that archetype to portray in that single frame. What do you want the audience to see?

5. Rehearse.

Let me start by stating that there is nothing wrong with rehearsing in front of a mirror. Try out your characters. How do they present themselves physically? What kind of posture do they have? What are some of their gestures? Get comfortable with their physicality, keeping it as natural and grounded as possible.

More than anything, this step will help you to avoid what not do do, increasing the success of your shoot.

6. Perform.

Use as little or as much of the prep I have suggested, and let it inform your instrument. This is your domain, your technique, your process, and it is none of my business how you get there.

Work small. Remember we are shooting mostly closeups. Keep your adjustments small, as if you are working in a closeup on camera. Comedy and pure joy excepted.

This last technique is worth the price of admission, and you may ask for my venmo at your leisure.

I am fully aware that it is, for the most part, an unnatural act for an actor to stare directly into the lens of a camera. During the shoot, as often as you want or need, do this:

Look away, fill your instrument with whatever you’re going to fill it with, then when you’re ready, notice me. “Me” meaning right down the barrel of the lens. Maybe you notice me for one shot, maybe you notice me for ten. While you’re noticing me, take yourself through a mini-arc that serves your archetype. Do not worry about looking away- I will know what you are doing, and I will never look at my watch.

Keep doing this over and over.

The camera will see it, believe me.

In Closing

Again- use any, all, or none of this. No one thing works for everyone. If you show up to shoot, step in front of the camera, and have your “moves” down that have worked for you tried and true for years, that’s absolutely fine with me. I’ll be right there with you, cheering you on and capturing the magic as best I can.