My neighbors are goofballs

My neighbor's Latin combo band, Street Sounds, needed some new group shots for press, artwork, and bookings; so the other evening we wandered to an empty lot and took some photos. 

It was great to get out of the studio for a bit and trample through some weeds and a little light rain to earn a good photo.

The only difficulty was... well... the band.  I had them hold some instruments as props but about 15 seconds after they picked them up they started playing them.  In this shot to the right they had just started messing around and playing a bit of a song.

Then they wouldn't stop.  And they wouldn't look at the camera.  Did I mention it was raining a little?  So I had them drop their instruments for some shots without them- thinking that the instruments wouldn't be there to distract them from the business of having their photograph taken.

They just goofed around with each other instead.

A haiku to hair

Today I wrote a haiku to hair:

Hair, you are so strange
one day you look so lovely
the next, oh so lame.

When preparing for a headshot portrait session a lot of us make a laundry list of all the things we hope look okay. We hope our shirt isn't wrinkled or that we brushed all of our dog's hairs off it. We hope our eyeshadow isn't creasing or our mascara isn't mysteriously flaking off and leaving little black snowflakes on our cheeks. We hope we remembered to trim that one little nose hair that always sticks out of that left nostril...

On top of that list is almost always our hair. Oh, hair. That pile of filamentous biomaterial emanating from the dermis of our scalp which causes us so much heartache. We wash it, dry it, spray it, curl it, flatten it, tease it, dye it, and otherwise attempt to torture it into the shape we want it to take. And it usually resists.

So what do you do when your hair isn't doing what you want it to do for the one hour you want it to look perfect (during a photo session)? You get a photographer who understands your pain and looks out for your hair- making sure it's not covering your face, sticking up like Alfalfa's hair, or being otherwise totally disobedient.

And then you chill out! Smile through your crazy hair because when someone looks at your headshot they shouldn't even be looking at your hair anyway- they should be looking at your friendly, approachable personality radiating from your smile and drawing attention from everything else in the photo to your smiling eyes.. Unless you have hair like the B-52's. Then people will notice your hair before your face.

Headshot photo booth! And bacon-wrapped dates.

Last week I partnered with a legal publishing company hosting a networking event for attorneys and provided a little "social media photobooth" in a corner of the room, where attendees can stop by and have their headshot taken for a fraction of the price of an in-studio session.

It was a lot of fun and great exercise for a headshot photographer like me since I've got about 3 minutes to get a great photo of each person. And after the event, the feedback has been spectacular. Today someone called me to tell me he was "fully expecting to hate every last one of the photos and didn't even want to look at them online... but I couldn't believe it- I liked them all! Even my wife likes them and she hates everything." :)

I'm having trouble deciding what was my favorite part of the whole experience:

1. Meeting great new people
2. Great feedback from people happy with their photos already uploading them to LinkedIn
3. The appetizers at the event. Those bacon-wrapped dates were AMAZING.

What not to wear for a headshot: episode 1

I have a few rules for choosing clothing to wear during your headshot. One of those rules is this: no t-shirts with stuff on them. Stuff like logos, crazy patterns, glitter, bows, splatters of mud, or anything else that distracts from your face.

A headshot should be a photo of your head, and anything else in the photo- the background, your clothing, jewelry, etc.- should be incidental and exist only to frame and compliment your face. Anything that steals the show from your face is a no-no.

If you see your t-shirt before you see your face, then it's got to go. Change, that is. Being shirtless for a headshot is also a no-no.

Check out these examples-- in the first photo, her face is competing with the awesomeness of a giant griffin fighting a dragon on her t-shirt. If you're put into an empty room and there's a young woman standing in one corner but and a griffin fighting a dragon in the other corner of the room, which corner are you going to be looking at?

Don't let your face be upstaged by a griffin.

And the second photo is pretty self-explanatory. If you're going to wear a t-shirt with someone's logo on it, you might as well be selling their product in the photo, and not your own face. Now excuse me, I suddenly want a refreshing carbonated drink...

Can't decide what you look like?

Most people are not like my dad, who has had the same haircut since the late 1950's*. We like to change our look here and there and even on a daily basis... one day we've got a beard, the next day it's a mustache. The day after that it has vanished to mustache heaven.

Although I wear contacts 95% of the time, I walk my dog every morning before I put my contacts in, and I always see the same early morning commuters and dog walkers around the neighborhood who only see me in my big, black librarian glasses and red and white knitted hat. They must think I always dress like I'm in a "Where's Waldo" book.

So how should your headshot look if you've got so many different looks? I always vote for the majority. (we're not talking about political stances, by the way, just portraiture trends.) If you usually wear your glasses when meeting your clients for the first time, then wear your glasses in your headshot. If you're usually clean shaven and only sport a mustache to go with your Tom Selleck Halloween costume, then leave the mustache at home for your headshot.

Or in some cases- if you're an actor and want to have multiple looks for different types of auditions, then take photos with all those looks so you'll have a big pool to choose from. Auditioning for a lumberjack role? Send them that bearded headshot! Trying for the part of a young librarian? Send them the naked cheeks and spectacles look!
*true story.

Spit out your gum.

There's nothing worse than an amazing photo of yourself where your smile looks so perfect, your eyes sparkle, your head is titled in just the perfect angle that makes your nose look so cute... but there's one little hair sticking straight up. Or one little fingerprint on your glasses. Or one little fuzzy from your sweater resting on your lip.

Or one little glob of bright pink chewing gum mashed between your teeth.

Sometimes we can stress ourselves so much about having our photo taken- timing the next haircut and color perfectly or when to trim or shave the beard so it's just perfect at the appointment, or choosing just the right shirt that brings out those itty bitty little blue highlights in your eyes...

For me it's generally about seeing the forest instead of the trees. People are drawn to portraits of friendly faces that catch your attention because of the warmth of the smile and the natural, confident, comfortable ease in their face. It's the overall tone of the image that's the most important in making it successful in grabbing and holding someone's attention.

But something that distracts from that will ruin it and cause the viewer's eyes to go to that one spot in the photo- instead of to the whole photo. Something like a huge, sparkly piece of jewelry, or bright purple polkadots on a tie... or a piece of pink gum poking out of someone's mouth.

So before you have your portrait taken, spit out your gum.

Pinup photos! With food.

Organic Headshots is the official photography studio for FOODGASM- an online cooking show with a vintage pinup theme. Michelle takes all the fun promo photos for the show, and even films it with them as one of the camera operators or the director of photography for some episodes. Congrats, Foodgasm, for all your recent success. Here's to many more yummy episodes!