This week’s guest blog is from the amazing Julie Lomax. We’re talking HEADSHOTS and why they are so important.

A good headshot is very important, we have so little time these days and at a glimpse, your profile picture is the first point of call as to whether someone wants to do business, go on a date, offer you that job you’ve always been looking for, or even just be your friend.

If you’ve just won that competition or award and the local press want you to supply them quite quickly with a great looking headshot of yourself, (they don’t send photographers out these days, they expect you to have your own, apart from exceptional circumstances) or a shot of you at work or even with some company branding, you need to look your best, (they’re not looking for an image of you with a cocktail in hand on a deckchair, cropped to death to hide the fact that, that is what it is) and the importance of speed is essential, you need a little library of stock images you can produce to capture the correct PR attention.

The award event may also require a great shot of you to go into their video, slideshow, brochure or flyer.

You want to advertise in your local newsletter or society, you need a great headshot, you do this regularly, you need a few different style images to go in a regular feature.

You’re Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter etc.. need a professional shot, thats up to date, no point it being 8 years old, it doesn’t give the correct image.

You’re producing a company brochure, faces are what people want to see in a brochure, people like to see who they will be dealing with, a friendly face or professional looking, friendly face.

Your website is having a spruce up, the first thing you need to do is update your image on your contact page.

CV’s requires an up to date image.

I think thats enough reason’s to have a professional up to date Headshot, it should be thought of as an investment in the business, a must!

 

Remember when you come round to having your headshot taken.

• What to wear? This is very high up on the list of things to consider, you may have to wear a uniform so in that case just make sure it’s clean and ironed, if not make sure what you wear is plain, stripes, hoops, checks, and logo’s can date an image and also make it doesn’t look to fussy. (tightly checked suits, can cause a problem with moire, so men BEWARE!)
• If you have branding on your website that you might be using the image on, have a think about what colour’s would and wouldn’t work with that, as well as what would work with your own colouring.
• Where to have it taken?
• Do you need a plain white studio headshot, a natural outdoor shot, a head andshoulders or a more full body, do you want a fun image or a serious look?
• Your photographer can help you out with this and sometimes you may need a

selection of images.

• Don’t forget we’re is it being used, (Linkedin profile, website, new-letter, press etc) sometimes it matter’s if your looking to the left or right, if you need a landscape, panoramic or portrait shot or again a combination to form a little library of images for different marketing.
• If you own a business and are shooting a few members of staff, you may need to co-ordinate the staff in uniform, suits, colours or completely random depending on the look you are going for. eg, I shot some staff and they all came in very neutral colours apart from one lady who wore red, the colour was perfect for her and had I been doing just her on her own it would have been perfect but as a group of images that had to work together it just wasn’t, so we had to re-shoother image on the next visit.

 

Thanks for reading,

Julie Lomax
www.julielomaxphotography.co.uk