Hating headshots is hurting you
Well…hating HAVING your headshot taken is hurting your brand. We put so much pressure one updating headshots that we put it off and leave ourselves off our websites or leave our old selves on the website! Sometimes you just have to do the dang thing.
Here's something I see all the time. Someone mentions they need a new headshot. Their LinkedIn photo is four years old. Their company website still has the one from the previous job. They know it. They say something like, "I really need to get that done."
And then they don't.
Not because they're lazy. Not because they don't care. But because the stakes feel enormous. This is going to represent them. It has to be perfect. They have to lose those last ten pounds first, or get a haircut, or wait until the season changes and they can wear that one jacket. They need to feel ready.
So they wait. And the old photo stays up.
I've been photographing people for a long time, and I can tell you this: the pressure of the "perfect headshot" is one of the most effective ways to never actually have one.
Headshots for HR Partners
What happens when the bar is too high
When we treat a headshot like a singular, definitive, once-in-a-decade event, we put ourselves in an impossible position. It has to capture everything. It has to be timeless. It has to make us look the way we feel on our best day, every day, forever.
No photo can do that. Not even a great one.
So we stall. We attach conditions to it. We make it contingent on something else happening first. And in the meantime, our professional presence stays stuck on an image that no longer represents who we are or where we're headed.
The people who look the most natural in photos have one thing in common
They've been in front of a camera a lot.
Not because they're vain. Not because they're models. Because repetition builds familiarity, and familiarity builds ease. When being photographed isn't a rare, high-stakes event, you stop performing for the camera and start actually being yourself in front of it.
I notice it clearly in sessions. Clients who have been photographed recently, even casually, settle in faster. They make better eye contact. They're less stiff. They forget to be self-conscious because they're not treating this as their one shot to get it right.
The people who haven't been in front of a camera in years? The pressure they've built up around this moment is almost palpable. Every frame feels like it's being judged against an impossible standard they've been imagining for a long time.
That's not a criticism. It's just what happens when we make something rare and weighty instead of normal and regular.
More often, lower stakes
What if instead of waiting for the perfect moment, you just... went ahead?
Not because the photos will be perfect. But because doing it more regularly changes your relationship with the whole thing. You stop treating a photo session as a verdict on how you look and start treating it as a professional practice, like updating your resume or cleaning out your inbox.
You get more comfortable. You stop bracing. You stop arriving with a checklist of everything that has to go right for this to work.
And here's the thing that surprises most people: the photos that actually look like them, the ones they end up loving, almost never come from the moment they thought they were nailing it. They come from the moment they relaxed. From a pause between poses. From laughing at something dumb. From a frame where they forgot to be careful.
Those moments don't happen when the session is loaded with significance. They happen when you've given yourself enough reps that the camera stops being something you perform for.
You don't have to be ready. You just have to go.
You don't need to wait until you've lost the weight or grown out your hair or figured out what you want your "look" to be. You need a photo that represents where you are right now, doing the work you're doing right now, for the people you're trying to reach right now.
That photo does its job. Then a year or two from now, you get another one. And it does its job.
That's it. That's the whole system.
The perfect headshot isn't a thing you find when the conditions are finally right. It's a thing you build over time by showing up for it, again and again, without making it mean so much.
Come as you are. We'll figure out the rest together.
Need help figuring out your Headshot look?
Who is this photo for?
Who is your primary audience, the person who will look at this photo and make a decision about you? A hiring manager, a potential client, an event organizer, a patient, a customer walking past your website? The answer changes almost everything.
What do you want that person to feel in the first three seconds? Safe and in good hands? Excited to work with you? Like they already know you a little?
What does your work actually look like?
Is your work formal, creative, technical, relational? Does your job require people to trust you with something serious, or does it require them to feel comfortable enough to open up?
Does your industry have a visual norm, and do you want to fit inside it or stand slightly outside it?
What's the environment this photo will live in?
Is this primarily for LinkedIn, a website, a speaker bio, a printed directory, a real estate sign? Some of those are tiny circles. Some are full-width banners. The crop and composition matter.
Will it sit alongside other team headshots? If so, is there a look or format the team is using that you need to match?
What do you actually want to communicate about yourself?
If someone looked at your headshot and had to describe your personality in three words, what would you want those words to be?
Is there a version of yourself at work that feels most true, the way you are when you're in your element and not thinking about it? What does that look like?
What has not been working about your current photo?
Does it look like you? Does it feel dated? Does it communicate the wrong thing, too stiff, too casual, wrong setting? Has your role or your audience changed since it was taken?
What's the one thing you most want to be different this time?
Headshots for Core First Bank & Trust
