In the last 4 years, we certainly have created a world where we live behind our screens. It’s therefore paramount that your first impression is a good one.

In an ever-increasingly digital world, it’s essential to put your best face forward with a professional headshot. Your headshot is the first thing people see from you online.

With more and more people working from home, the need to be visually represented online is more important than ever before. As a freelancer or business professional, you are marketing yourself to clients and potential employers almost exclusively through your digital presence. 

Your headshot is the first thing people see from you online. It accompanies your email signature, LinkedIn profile, website or blog and social media accounts. A great headshot will help you get noticed before someone reads your resume or learns about your business. A bad one can hurt your chances of being considered for a job or new client. 

So what makes a good headshot?

• Excellent lighting: natural or soft lighting is best, with no harsh shadows.
• Be yourself: make sure you feel comfortable and confident in the chosen pose and clothing.
• The right background: minimal distractions, so the focus stays on you!
• You want the focus to be on you, not what’s behind you. A great headshot should have you looking confidently at the viewer.
• You want some shadow and highlight to sculpt the face and make it representative of you.
• The dress code should fit the brand.
• The background should not be distracting or messy; it should complement your look without pulling attention away from it. 
• The headshot is all about the facial expression, the emotion being projected to the viewer.

Invest in yourself. 

Your photo represents who you are and how you want to be perceived by others. Think about what kind of message it sends when someone views your profile pages. We are visual creatures first and foremost. We process images superfast compared to text. 

Studies have shown that we decide on listening to or reading things faster with visual images than just plain text. Does this come from millions of years without humans vocalising ourselves? We, therefore, made our interactive decisions based on our sight rather than hearings? 

Intuition! Always a great thing to follow, wouldn’t you agree?

I have recently read somewhere online that over on LinkedIn, potentially, if you have a profile photo, you are 14 times more likely to have people click through to your profile and read more about you. This can also help recruiters put a face to a name, improving your memorability.

Although the text is also crucial in terms of visibility and personal branding, it is hard for someone else to know what you look like without seeing an image.

Take recruiters who are busy people. They’re simply not going to be able to remember everyone who applies for their job vacancies. 

If the recruiter has nothing but words on a page or screen when searching through large volumes of potential candidates, it becomes much tougher to recall the specifics of each person’s application. 

A picture helps recruiters break up that text-heavy information overload and makes them more likely to remember you as an individual candidate.

A carefully lit portrait and a good coaching photographer will create profile imagery that genuinely looks like you!

As our world becomes more and more digitally focused, we must have a professional portrait of ourselves.

Our profile picture is the face of our business. It is what others will use to recognise you in your digital community. A carefully lit portrait and a good expressionist coaching photographer will create profile imagery that genuinely looks like you! 

Suppose you have any questions about deciding on the correct photographer for your headshots or Personal Branding. In that case, you can DM me on Linkedin, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or comment below, and I’ll get back to you with some ideas.