Taking my first head shot portraits
I have been avoiding people photography for a long, long time, and it’s time that I address this. Since starting my photographic journey, I’ve been aiming for more “fine art” kinds of images. The issue here is that I don’t make much money off of said images. I just simply don’t know how to market these images, and generating a demand. My camera gear ain’t cheap and, honestly, I need things to start paying themselves off.
Of course, this means that I need to start making photos of people. People want photos of themselves for a variety of reasons. And most importantly, people pay.
The avenue of people photography that I wish to pursue is the “Corporate Head-shot”. Compared to other types of people photography, I feel like that I have the most control with this. The lighting and look can be easily reproduced; I only have to represent the person, note beautify them; and the hope is that businesses will be repeat clients. But first, I need to start practicing!
The objective for a head-shot is pretty straight-forward. A portrait with a white background. I think that this is a typical look that companies will want to integrate into their websites, and other applications. I had photographed my friend, Josh, here. Photos below.
You may notice a few faults right away. The obvious trouble being the strip of light on my friend’s neck. Truth be told, I had many issues during this photoshoot. My key light wouldn’t fire; I had tethering troubles; my camera couldn’t auto-focus in the somewhat-dark conditions; I also shot down onto Josh making him appear weaker.
After photographing my friend, I decided to make some self-portraits to address the issues that I had photographing Josh. I made sure my lights were properly set, and I placed the camera at a lower angle. Posing still isn’t quite there yet though.
My setup uses three lights, and a reflector. A key light on camera right facing about 45 degrees downward onto the subject. A reflector on camera left to bounce back some light to fill in the shadows. A light on camera left behind the subject as a kicker. And lastly a light right behind the subject to light up the backdrop to a pure white.
An apparent downside to my lighting setup is that it requires lot of space. I need a 10ft x 20ft space to comfortably accommodate the equipment, and myself. This runs against my want to have a mobile setup. While the equipment can be packed up, this spacing requirement doesn’t allow much flexibility in where I can set up. Hopefully businesses have meeting rooms large enough for me to take over…
That’s it for now. I hope to have good word on making the corporate head-shot a real money making scheme in the future. For now, I still need a little bit more practice, and start building a portfolio to represent my work.