Dallas Business Headshot
So, today we were called upon by a large, local international accounting firm to shoot an executive portrait at their office’s downtown. They had (new) specific guidelines as to the format of this (and future) headshots of their executives which we tried our best to follow. These guidelines called for a more casual look with an out-of-focus office or skyline background and simple lighting. The examples they gave us were, well, not the best I have ever seen and it could have been a mistake to try and match them. This is always a judgement call for professional headshot photographers as you are “darned if you do and darned if you don’t.” If a company gives you samples that are well, great then you are all set. Meet, or beat their expectations and you have done your job. But if what they give you to go by is, well, uh not up to your own typical standards you could end up in trouble. So in cases like this we follow a loose interpretation, and try to get as close to what they ask for in the way of position, gesture and the feeling they are going after. But we would not be pros if we did not up the ante and provide good lighting, interpersonal skill-set to encourage relaxed gesture and pose, as well as some nice Photoshop retouching in post-production. We shot this shot on the 34th floor of their office building and since Bruce was taller than me (who isn’t) we had to get up on a ladder in order to cut out most of the sky above the horizon line in the photo. This way we were able include the nice, out-of-focus skyline images of downtown Dallas. For this type of shot we always use an extra long lens (70-200 / 2.8) shot at 5.6 or less to get that nice out-of-focus look. In this shot we used an Octabox for the main light and a “shoot-through” very small umbrella for some added fill. The light is balanced with manual exposure all the way around. All-in-all another successful business headshot that hopefully fulfills the bill for the company, the client and one we can be happy with as well.
