Laura got in touch about headshots for her LinkedIn profile. I have known her and her family for years, so the session was part catch up and part straightforward piece of work.
Why Laura booked the session
Laura works as an account handler in Ipswich and needed fresh images for her professional profiles. That is the most common reason someone books a headshot with me. Not a promotion, not a new job, just the point where the photograph representing you online no longer does the job.
For anyone working in Ipswich or the towns around it, that picture is often the first thing a client, a recruiter or a new colleague sees. A good one will not win you the work by itself. A poor one can cost you the chance to be considered at all.
Turning up prepared changes the result
Before anyone comes to the studio I send a list of frequently asked questions and some advice on what to bring. It covers wardrobe, hair and makeup, and what the session will actually involve. Laura read it and acted on it. She arrived with a few outfit changes, hair and makeup already done, which meant we could start properly rather than spending the first half hour working out where to begin.
Preparation is not fussiness. It buys shooting time. A session where the first twenty minutes go on deciding what to wear is a session with twenty minutes less in it.
What to wear, and what to leave at home
My advice barely changes from one person to the next. Keep it simple. Plain fabrics, nothing with a busy pattern, minimal jewellery, no props. Laura’s choices were right: professional, understated, nothing that pulled the eye away from her face.
Elaborate clothing and heavy jewellery do not make a headshot more interesting. They make it harder to read. The photograph has one job, which is to show someone clearly enough that a stranger looking at it feels they have a sense of the person.
A relaxed session gets better pictures
Plenty of people are not comfortable in front of a camera, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. I do not rush sessions. There is time to try something, look at it, and go again if it is not working. Laura relaxed into it quickly, and that shows in the frames we kept.
A few good frames beat a long gallery
I would rather hand someone a small set of photographs they are genuinely pleased with than a long gallery they have to wade through. We worked through Laura’s outfit changes, adjusting the lighting and the angles as we went, and kept going until we had a handful that did the job properly.
Nobody needs forty versions of the same expression. They need two or three they can put in front of people without wincing. Laura left a review after her session that I was very pleased to read, and she came back the following year with Tim for a second session at the studio.
The studio, and working with people from Ipswich
My studio is at Base Business Park in Rendlesham, on the old RAF Bentwaters site near Woodbridge. It is about thirty minutes from Ipswich town centre on the A12, with free parking directly outside and changing facilities in the building. Plenty of the people I photograph work in Ipswich and find it an easier trip than parking in town.
If you need headshots for LinkedIn, a company profile or your own website, get in touch and we can work out what you need.
See more about my professional headshots in Suffolk.
I also photograph businesses and teams across the town, so see my page as a corporate photographer in Ipswich.
