Photographing Headshots

Good morning everyone.

In this morning's blog post I am going to keep everything simple. It is something that everyone can do and it can help when you have no white background to work with even when it may be required.

One of the first things I had to photograph when I got started with my degree was take a self portrait. Well as I found out it is not a easy as it sounds.

My chin was to high, the angle of my face was wrong, the exposure had to be changed often. I could take a light meter reading, which is why I always recommend a light meter. I have a Sekonic  but any light meter is suitable. It sorts out your exposures and gets out from in front of the camera a little less than you would think.

Well, over the past week I had to photograph a company and some head shots. They had some cream walls and it was just not what I was looking for. They wanted to add them to there web site for some advertising and I just wanted a clean crisp head and some shoulders. I had two soft boxes with me and that would be just great to get some good exposure and keep the shadow off the wall, correct.

So a typical setup would look like this right?

Lighting schematics by Lightingdiagram.com

You can get some good lighting and you can also take care of the shadow cast by your subject. This is a great setup. It is easy to carry to strobes and you could always use an office wall or flat surface for your background.

However, what if the background is uneven, full or artwork or even need additional editing later in Photoshop. However can you deliver a quick easy yet very clean background to your client with little or no additional editing.

Well all you have to do is reposition the soft boxes that you already have. In the following scenario I took my large Octa soft box. You can use your largest soft box so that it covers the entire back of the head and shoulders of your client. Then you position your other soft box over your shoulder behind you and the camera. 45 degrees to your right or left and high enough so that if your client is wearing glasses you do not get the reflection of the soft box in their lenses.

Take your light meter reading from the strobe over your shoulder and set your exposure accordingly.

Now you have a setup that you can use anywhere. No background is required and the photographs are going to be clear and crisp. 

Here are the final results from that shoot. 

I love this type of head shots. They are so clean and crisp. All I did in post-processing was apply a plugin mask. I used Perfectly Clear V2 by Athentech and I also tried out Portraiture by Imagenomic. They are both great products so give them a try and see what works for you.

It is a great way to add some additional business to your portfolio. I got most of my training from Lynda.com which is accessible from the Online Library. (I mentioned this in one of my previous posts) or check out the website of Peter Hurley  for some really great inspiration.

I hope you liked this post. If you would like to see more of this or even if you have a few suggestions then please send me an email at denzilern@stu.aii.edu or leave a comment on the site.

Happy shooting, have a great week and I will speak to you again next week.

Denzil