What is it like to make over 70 headshots over two days of shooting? Well, actually, it was surprisingly easy due to how well organized the team at Bohannan Huston was. Thanks to Brian and Marylin for getting everyone to the studio setup very efficiently and to Jessica for assisting. This was still the single biggest headshot shoot I did, taking three hours on a Monday morning and then three more hours on a Wednesday afternoon. Thanks to my well established lighting setup, even a conference room can be a very effective photo studio. I was able to accommodate people of all heights, glasses or no glasses, and keep the results of each headshot consistent so when looked at on the company website, as you see here on my own site, there is uniformity to each engineer. After each day’s headshot shoot, we did however getting a little more creative with these psychedelic candid portraits!
Santa Fe ceramic artist Noah Starer usually brings his art to my Home Studio to be photographed, but this time I took the photo studio to his art studio up in Santa Fe. Why? Because he has created a new serious of modular ceramic art that just has way too many individual pieces to move all the way to Albuquerque and also he would have to stay on site to setup each group, whereas normally they are just single pieces that I can place and photograph myself.
Having the right lighting setup is always important for headshots, and especially so for what I call head to toe headshots, or full body headshots. I previously shared commercial portraits I made of the attorneys and staff of Giddens Law in Albuquerque, New Mexico. These are the head to toe headshots made right in a small conference room in their office! The conference table had to be moved to feet the 9’ wide seamless white paper background, but other than that a full studio setup right in a lawyer’s office!
People are starting to find me specifically looking for headshots for LinkedIn. The more headshots I make and the more I write blog posts about how important it is to standout with a modern headshot, the more I find clients wanting a new headshot for LinkedIn specifically I get. When I make a new connection on LinkedIn and am then offered other people I may want to connect with, I scroll down looking at who has a professional looking headshot, and who has some casual photo taking with a cell phone with a busy background. What kind of impression do you want to make with potential employers, clients, and customers? Shannon definitely wanted to make the best impression she could on LinkedIn regarding the visual impact a modern headshot presents to anyone browsing her profile, looking to make a connection, and even thinking about hiring her.
I brought my camera and lighting back to Amity A Hair Place in Nob Hill for a second commercial portrait shoot with Felicia. She has also been my own hair stylist the past 2 years! Her salon is small and relaxed in a convenient location in Nob Hill. This is a place for a low stress haircut where no one is rushing and whooshing around you. Plus, Felicia has great styling skills and is a very interesting person to talk to as she regularly travels the world! Give Amity A Hair Place a try!
Another networking friend becomes a headshot client
Maria is a long-time networking friend. She is the kind of person that makes any gathering much more enjoyable with her great energy and enthusiasm. She needed to update her headshot and I was very glad that she chose me as her photographer. She came to the JCP Home Studio, petted Kiki, then it was headshot session time. Like many recent clients, she liked the black background in addition to the more common white background. I showed her all the photos we made on my 4K monitor and these two are the ones she chose.
I had my third opportunity to participate in Help-Portrait, a national day of volunteering where photographers and others meet to provide a free professional portrait, to people in their local community who otherwise may not be able to afford professional photography. My first time was back in 2011 in St. Petersburg, Florida in a space jam packed with photographers. This was my second year in a row in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but first time getting to shoot. Last year I only helped out with editing. This year with shooting it was great to know that something I helped with will be on that family’s wall for years to come.
