Can you really get a good headshot so quickly?

Recently I hosted an “Open Studio” day at our studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The idea was to set up a standard lighting scheme which was easily customizable for a variety of images. Need a headshot? No problem. Family Christmas photo? Boom. Images of your fresh baby? Perfection. The session was a pretty good success, selling out 70% of the slots on relatively short notice. But why not all the spots….It’s a deal after all! As I reflected, I started to think maybe folks might need a glimpse behind the scenes and answer the question: “Can you get anything good in such a short period of time?” This blog post hopefully shows you the answer is definitely yes. Let’s use Mya’s quest for a quick headshot as an example.

A good headshot can happen quickly

Every session starts with a quick chat and hammering out of goals for the images we are about to produce. For this mini session, it happened day of but for a full session we would discuss all of this before you arrive. The first photo of the session started at 1:56 and the last photo you see was taken at 2:11. Exactly 15 minutes. In truth, because we both were having a good time, we stretched Mya’s session another 5 minutes and got some more good stuff, but for the sake of my central thesis, I’ll constrain the images here to only those first 15 minutes and present them in the order they were taken. You’ll notice that we quickly move from a standard headshot look and straight into portraits which tell a story. Sometimes (and quite frequently if I’m being honest) we get keeper images straight out of the gate. There is something about you not really knowing what is going on that produces images that are authentically you. I might tell you these are just testers but often they make it to the final selections. Once I know we are in the safe zone with images I know you’ll love, we’ll often quickly move into more experimental land. We might circle back to the start when you’re super comfortable, but in order to get a well-rounded series of images, it’s great to be playful and have fun.

A little background on what we were going for with this session. Mya is a teacher at the Berklee School of Music, instructing other musicians who are trying to be music educators in the future. She plays the trumpet and piano and wanted images which primarily ring out as professional, but also convey her creative, dynamic personality. Sometimes professional headshots need to fit a certain guideline but Berklee is more open for how their professors’ headshots look, so we got to be plenty creative and fun. Mya walked in knowing she only needed one good image of her and was sure she could put all the pieces together for a good pic at least once. Now she has the happy problem of too many keepers. She’ll have to decide which one is definitively her and end up being the one that she uses to represent herself to her students and colleagues.

A good headshot session gives you options

I believe what separates me as a headshot photographer is that I don’t have a single “style”. In fact, constraining myself to one look goes against my entire creative vision. Your headshot should match the place it’s going. Sometimes that means it will be super serious, sometimes light, and sometimes dark. Just as an example of what I mean, I’ve added my own headshot I recently. It’s significantly different than the ones of Mya.

Light is the most ethereal element we interact with on a daily basis. Pay attention to it and you’ll see it constantly revealing its different qualities and peculiarities. The way it bounces, shines, or reflects changes it and changes our perception of the world. So it goes with how light is used in my studio. If you’re willing to enter into the creative process with me, you will leave a full headshot session with a wildly diverse set of images, differing just by where the light is, where you are, and the different expressions you have.

A good headshot matters

In the age of AI and everything artificial, my heartfelt belief is that a good headshot still matters. Sure, you can take a selfie and run it through an app to turn out a “headshot” but what does it say? How does it impact the viewer? Yourself? Headshots are definitely an investment and I understand we each have to make do with what we’ve got. If there was a follow up point to my main thesis, it would be that quality images are worth investing in. If you read through my Google reviews, you’ll see many people talking about feeling great after their sessions, excited to share their images. That stuff matters and it is why I do what I do each day!