Making headshots might seem like mundane or boring work--after all, you're just taking pictures of someone's face, right? How hard can that be?

Actually, I find it to be both fun and challenging.

Last week I received an email from John McDonnell, the president and chief operating officer of Biaggi's Restaurants. Biaggi's, which markets itself as a "casual Italian restaurant," began with one location in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1999 and now has 23 locations in 12 states. John is a founding partner of the business. (As an aside, my wife and I have eaten at the restaurant in Bloomington and recommend it highly--both the meals and the service have been excellent.)

In addition to his responsibilities for Biaggi's, John also speaks to a variety of student and business audiences about his experience. John contacted me because he wanted to update his photograph for these speaking events.

When we met at the studio, he told me that he'd never had a photograph of himself that he liked. Making headshots is easy, right? No pressure. Headshot photographer Peter Hurley says that his job is 10% photographer and 90% therapist--truth. I assured John that we'd make some flattering images that he would like.

Whenever I'm photographing someone, whether it's a business professional or a high school senior or a bride and groom, my first goal is to help them feel comfortable. If they don't trust me before we start shooting, they won't feel comfortable during the session. And if they don't feel comfortable, it will be harder to make good images. In most cases, then, sessions begin with conversation. I don't put my subject in front of the camera and start firing away. I also break up the session with periods of conversation and banter. Again, the goal is to help them feel less self-conscious. I have a much better chance of making photographs they'll enjoy if they feel comfortable.

Another benefit of this approach is that I get to learn people's stories. Everyone is interesting; you just need to ask questions and allow them to open up. This is what makes headshots fun for me. 

I usually ask clients if they don't like the way they've been photographed in the past or if there is some feature about themselves that they feel self-conscious about. While this may seem too probing, it's important for me to know so I can avoid those things. In addition, I want them to understand that I'll do my best to make them look good. A good portrait results from a partnership between the subject and the photographer.

At John's session, I asked him about his business and his speaking. We talked about sports and our families. He says his approach to public speaking is simply telling stories and it was evident that he enjoys it. He was inquisitive as well, asking me about the equipment I used and why I was using it.

I used two different backgrounds and four different lighting approaches because I wanted to give John several options for poses and looks. In some instances, the light, expression, and pose were more "open" and "approachable." In others, I was going for a more "intense" or "serious" look. 

Our session lasted just over an hour. John was easy to work with and, as you can see, we made some great portraits. When we wrapped up, I showed him a few of the images on the back of the camera and he was pleased. John selected a couple of the less serious images for his public speaking work, feeling those best represented him for that purpose.

My clients always receive their selections in both color and black & white. Personally, I love the simple look of black & white for a portrait or headshot. Below, though, are a couple of images from this session that worked better in color.

So that's how I do headshots. My thanks to John for letting me make his photographs. In the era of social networking when everybody's online, you are your own marketer and the images you use for your online profiles or other publicity materials create a critical first impression. Investing in a strong headshot makes good business sense. 

As a technical/marketing aside, I asked John how he found me. He said that he Googled "headshot photographers in Bloomington" and my site's blog posts came up in the top three results. I give the nod to my hosting service, Squarespace (affiliate link). I ran my site on a self-hosted Wordpress blog for four years and could never get decent search engine rankings. In December 2010, I moved to Squarespace (mostly to avoid the hassle of having to constantly mess with the backend of Wordpress) and have seen my search engine rankings improve dramatically. I don't know what "secret sauce" Squarespace uses that I didn't have on my Wordpress site, but the difference is remarkable. If you're a photographer, speaker, creative, or small business owner who's looking for an all-in-one website+hosting solution that's easy to use, looks great and has the potential to get you good search engine results, you may find, like I have, that Sqaurespace is hard to beat.