How to Craft the Perfect Headshot Photo
Rule number one: you can't look like you're thinking
Having shot hundreds of thousands of Headshots while sitting down with each client to narrow down the best shot out of hundreds per shoot. The biggest rule that stands out every time is that whatever shot is the winner is a shot in which the person does not look like they're thinking in the shot.
A guaranteed way to have a crappy head shot is by picking a shot in which the person looks like they have a thought in their head. This thought often makes them look a variety of tones from confused to scared to awkward, but it doesn't matter what tone it is because simply having a tone in which they look like they're thinking makes it so that we don't see them as the pure innocence that they are, and instead, we get distracted by the curiosity of wondering what they're thinking of.
Knowing this, it's important to figure out ways to create a candid experience while shooting a client in which sometimes it's the in between moments that end up being the best shots
A technique that I use all the time is to have them act as if they're listening to the camera that's shooting them as opposed to thinking about themselves. I often role-play and say that the camera is a friend at a barbecue and you're pleased to hear what they have to say.
Rule number two: Avoid big eyes at all costs.
It's interesting how in the course of my life I have shot a handful of Asian people who a few of them have intentionally tried to make their eyes look a little bit bigger than they are. When this happens it makes me smile because they think they are doing themselves a favor, but in fact, they are doing the opposite of what people ought to be doing in a headshot.
The reason why you don't want to open your eyes too wide is because typically in life we only open our eyes wide when we are afraid. It's that old deer in the headlights saying. Not to get political, but I find it interesting how when you look at photos of Donald Trump, his eyes look very small and very small eyes means that you are cool calm and in control.
THE SMIZE
You can craft yourself to have the perfect eye with simply by being yourself and feeling a sense of joy and love, but if that's not working, you can do something that Photographer Peter Hurley coined as the Smize. This is a process in which you bring your lower eyelids slightly up, giving yourself this kind of Hollywood actor cool look that works very well for actors, but often doesn't necessarily work for business professionals. The importance here is bringing the lower eyelid up because if you bring the upper eyelid down, then you just look tired and drunk.
Rule number three: Be joy
When directing a head shot shoot back in the day I used to make jokes to get people to laugh, which I still do on the occasion, but I felt that instead of being indirect about what I want I simply tell them what I want by painting a picture of the emotion. Specifically, the emotion that has to be felt is a sense of joy love trust and comfort. The last thing you want is pretty much every other emotion, especially ones of judgment. Every time when picking the final photo the goal is simply to pick the photo that can be judged the least the one that is the most pure innocent. This doesn't come from a huge smile in which happiness is the goal, but rather an internal sense of security in which there's a very subtle sense of joy emitting from the person.
Rule number four: look directly straight
It took me many years to figure this out, but after having shot maybe over 100,000 Headshots I realize that if a person's head is even slightly at an angle, it means that I don't trust them as much as when their head is directly facing me. I mean, think about it if someone was very open and confident and trustworthy they would not bother to hide one bit, and they would look you directly forwards. Meanwhile, the opposite is true in which, if someone is turning their head, it probably means that they feel a sense of shame and desire to be anything less than open.
This phenomenon can be very interesting for certain people, especially women who come into Schuit thinking that they are supposed to pose like a model. For a lot of editorial fashion stuff it's great to see women turn their heads to give a sense of mystery and allure that brings you in. However, when shooting a headshot, the goal is not to disconnect the viewer from the photo, but to create as much authentic trust as possible.
Chin Height Matters
To add to this rule, it's also important that the chin is not too low, which looks like the person is judging you or the chin is too high, which looks like the person is too smug and proud. Having a neutral head position where the face is as forward and in the middle as possible, creates the most trust in a headshot.
Body can be angled
I'm not telling you to be boring by having the person look straight. I'm just telling you to create the most trust, but it's an even better practice to have the body at an angle with the head remaining straight that way the body at least has a dynamic depth and the photo looks not too flat.
The head tilt
As a bonus, I like to add a slight head tilt to Headshots in which it's imperative that the mouth and nose stay directly straight and the chin doesn't go too high or too low however, it can be very beneficial to have the head tilting to the right or the left. I called this till the tilt of endearment because it creates a feeling of endearment. You often see a dog tilt their head when they're connecting to a human and trying to understand them, and I think the similar thing happens when looking at a headshot in which the subject has their head slightly tilted. Back in the day I used to call this the Paris Hilton tilt. It's almost as if the person is so safe and calm and relaxed that they don't care to use their neck muscles and let their head fall from a little bit of gravity, showing the audience that they are simply that relaxed and connected
Rule Six: Non judgement
The goal the perfect headshot is to be as bulletproof as possible, which means you want a shot in which no one can judge you for looking like you are thinking anything or feeling anything too deeply.
It's interesting because this means that the best headshot is almost a headshot in which the person does absolutely nothing but looks at the camera however, usually if I tell people to do nothing and look at the camera, what happens is that a resting bitch face of anger is the default look. This makes sense because if someone were to stare at you with no expression, you would think they're upset at you. This is why it's so important that the subject needs to feel a sense of joy, confidence, openness, and connection in their heart which almost gives them the smallest smile possible.
Smallest Smile possible
I want shot a yearbook for a music festival in which I had only a few sentences to prep each person for their yearbook portrait. My number one rule for them was for them to give me the smallest smile possible. A big smile is often too much and can lead to lots of judgment while you wonder why they're laughing or smiling so much because it's awkward however, a small smile shows a sense of pleasure and satisfaction in people that doesn't leave you questioning and also avoids the pitfalls of no smile at all which ends up looking like resting bitch face..
