What Happens During a Headshot Session

Most people apologize before they set their bag down. They tell me they’re not photogenic, or they hate photos of themselves. I hear it all the time.

It’s rarely about what you look like. Most people have just never been taught how to look their best in a photo. Walking into a studio and having somebody point a camera at you is uncomfortable when nobody has told you what happens next. By the time we’re done, you’ll have a handful of things you can actually do with your face and your posture, and they don’t stay in the studio. They’ll help in the next photo somebody takes of you.

So here is what happens during a headshot session, start to finish.

What happens when I get there?

You’ll park in my lot, right out in front of the studio, a stucco building. I’ll greet you at the door.

First thing we do is drop your bag and hang up your clothes. Then we’ll talk about your headshot. It’s a short conversation and it decides most of how the session will flow. Where are these photos going? How do you want to come across? Does your company have rules about the background or the lighting? Then you get a few minutes to freshen up, fix your hair, sort out your makeup, and change into whatever you want to start in.

If you haven’t seen what to do before your session, it’s all in the headshot preparation guide.

How long the whole thing runs depends on which session you book. You can see which session fits here.

Do I need to know how to pose?

No. Before you’re in front of the lights, I’ll walk you through how this works. I’ll be moving your head. Up, down, side to side. I’ll tell you where your shoulders go and what your chin is doing. If your hands are in the frame, I’ll tell you where to put them. None of it is something you have to invent on the spot. You’ll be responding to my direction.

What I won’t do is run a script. What makes one person laugh makes the next one freeze. I’m reading you and adjusting as we go, which means your session sounds different from the one before it. That’s on purpose. A photo of somebody performing another person’s good idea looks exactly like that.

What if what I brought doesn’t work?

Bring several options. We’ll go through what you brought and talk about what photographs well and what doesn’t. If something isn’t working, I’ll tell you, and I’ll tell you why. My job is to get you the best photo, and a photographer who won’t tell you your shirt is wrong isn’t doing it.

When neither of us is sure about a look, we don’t stand there debating it. We shoot it, put it on the screen, and look. The screen settles it in just a few seconds.

When do I actually see the photos?

After every look, not at the end.

I shoot tethered to a big screen. Once we’ve finished a look, I’ll pull up what we got and you come over and we go through it together.

Two things happen at that screen. The first is that you see what the coaching did, side by side. The frame before I said something, and the frame after. It’s usually a small change, your chin or your shoulders or your eyes, and the difference is bigger than you’d think. Once you see it, you can feel it, and you can do it again on purpose.

The second thing matters more. I find out what you like. People are specific about their own faces in a way I can’t guess from the outside. Somebody will look at a frame I thought was the best one of the day and tell me they don’t like what their mouth is doing. Good. Now I know, and we’re still shooting, so I can go get you more of what you actually want instead of more of what I assumed.

We tag the favorites and either shoot more of that look or move on to the next one. That’s why when you go home you’ll know you got the shot you wanted. You’ve been watching it work the whole time.

How do I pick, and when do I get them?

When we’re done shooting, we go back through everything we tagged and narrow it down further.

From there it’s your call. Some people want to finish it while they’re standing there, so we sit down and pick the final images together before you leave. Other people want to look at home, on their own time, or get a second opinion. If that’s you, I send a proof gallery of the images we narrowed down.

Once you’ve picked, retouched images come back the next day. Occasionally two, if I’m booked heavy or shooting several people that day.

My rule on retouching is simple. Anything that won’t be on your face in two weeks comes off. Blemishes, patchiness, the spot that showed up the morning of. Anything permanent stays, unless you ask me to change it. Your scar, your lines, your gray. That’s your face, and it’s up to you what I edit.

That’s most of what you need to know. The rest I’ll walk you through when you get here. You can book online, or send me a note first if you’d rather ask a question before you commit to a time.