What Are Headshots and Why Should Businesses Even Care?
A headshot isn’t just a simple image. It represents a person’s or brand’s personality, trustworthiness, and transparency.
Whether you’re a small startup, an individual, or a huge corporation, having a professional headshot can shape perceptions, build trust, and boost engagement from potential clients and business partners.
What Are Headshots?
A headshot is a photo that’s taken of a person’s face, shoulders, and upper body. For the most part, they’re used to professionally represent an individual or brand, making them feel more approachable and trustworthy.
Why Professional Headshots Are Important for Businesses
There are many reasons why professional headshots are important for businesses. The main reasons include the following:
Trust and Credibility
A high-quality, well-lit, and professionally captured headshot signals that you and your team are serious about business.
Just think about it. Who’s more trustworthy? The person with a professional headshot or the person in a group photo at a party? Nine times out of ten, the person with the professional headshot.
Simply put, it puts your best foot forward. It creates a connection of trust and credibility from the get-go, which could be the very foundation of a thriving customer relationship.
Brand Identity
A brand isn’t just a company. A brand is an identity. It stands for who you are, who you employ, and what you’re capable of doing.
Professional headshots can help show this brand identity. For example, for a law-based company, a professional headshot can showcase professionalism, trust, and transparency – three pillars that might very well be the company’s foundation.
To really cement any brand identity, it must be shown in every aspect of a company. Its processes, employees, products and services, and so forth. And headshots are a part of this.
In fact, if you’re consistent in your branding from all areas of your business, consumers are 60% more likely to interact with you.
Standing Out
Often, businesses or individuals look at standing out as a very difficult task. It requires something extensive. However, it doesn’t. Simply having a professional headshot can make you stand out because very few people do it.
Not only this, it puts a face to a name, an action to a face, and a face to a company.
On platforms like LinkedIn, it’s known that simply having a profile photo (professional or not) increases profile views by 21 times and messages by 36 times, demonstrating its significance.
Types of Headshot Photography
When it comes to headshot photography, there are a few different types. For instance:
Corporate Headshots
Corporate headshots are often used on company websites, email signatures, social media profiles, etc., and focus on a clean, polished image of a person’s face.
Most of the time, these headshots are professional and formal. They have a single focus – to convey competence, trustworthiness, and approachability.
Model Headshots
Model headshots are for those pursuing a career in fashion, acting, or commercial modelling. Often, they’re used in lookbooks, where potential managers or brands can get a better understanding of how the model looks as well as their features.
With this type of headshot, there’s usually a strong focus on the model’s physical attributes. Some attributes may even be emphasised to look more appealing to casting directors or agencies.
Branding Headshots
Branding headshots are similar to portrait-style images. They’re used to reflect someone’s personal or business brand.
Often, branding headshots are used by people whose company is their face—for instance, influencers. A lot of the time, they own companies that are driven by who they are.
Social Media Headshots
Social media headshots are headshots that are used on social platforms like Instagram, X, or Facebook. These can be profile photos or standard photos, which are just authentic and relatable headshots that relate to a person’s followers.
Compared to other headshots, like corporate headshots, social media headshots are a lot more laid back. They’re creative and fun and are commonly used to reflect the personal brand or lifestyle of an individual.
Fashion Headshots
Fashion headshots are like model headshots. However, they’re actually used to promote something like a designer, model, jeweller, hair stylist, etc.
These photos usually focus on unique looks, clothing, poses, and/or accessories, drawing attention to both the individual and their garments.
LinkedIn Headshots
LinkedIn headshots are like corporate headshots. In fact, corporate headshots can actually be used for LinkedIn.
These are just images for LinkedIn profile pictures. They’re meant to balance between professionalism and approachability, boosting connections, messages, and page views.
Key Elements of an Effective Business Headshot
Lighting
Good lighting plays a very important role in an effective business headshot. Soft, natural light is often used. A lot of the time, these images are performed in a photo studio; however, makeshift studios can also work.
Background
The background is normally white, grey or black. Anything that’s simple and non-distracting. For branding headshots, however, different colours may be used for the background. For example, yellow is for Shell, blue is for Facebook, etc.
Clothing
Clothing helps represent the person, brand, and industry. What they wear will depend on the company. Some companies, for instance, those in law, will look more professional than, let’s say, those in a SaaS software company.
Expression and Pose
There isn’t a right or wrong expression or pose. It depends on the goals of the headshot. If professionalism is your main goal, then a smile is perfect. If your goal is to show creativity, you may do a more silly look.
Props (Optional)
When it comes to professional headshots, props aren’t necessary. However, why not if it adds to the headshot and reflects your profession more? For example, a chef wearing a chef hat or an artist wearing a t-shirt covered in paint.
Average Headshot Costs
The average price of professional headshots will vary from company to company. However, our average headshot prices at Masoud Raoufi are below:
Service | Pricing |
Headshot Hourly Rate | 450 AED Per Hour 1,500 AED Per Day |
Single Photo | 600 AED Per Photo |
2-4 Photos | 540 AED Per Photo |
5-9 Photos | 480 AED Per Photo |
10-20 Photos | 390 AED Per Photo |
More than 20 Photos | 330 AED Per Photo |
See our pricing page here for a better understanding of our headshot pricing. For large orders, feel free to reach out for a customised quote.
Choosing the Right Photographer for Your Business Headshot
If you’re considering headshots for your business, you can find the right person by following the guide below:
1. Understand Your Needs
The very first thing you need to think about is your needs. Think about the type of headshot you want, how you want it perceived, etc.
For example, is it for LinkedIn? Is it for a company profile? Is it for an author’s page on a website? Do you want it professional? Do you want it a bit silly? What coloured background do you want? Consider all of these elements.
Knowing your goals will allow you to find the right photographer. Alongside this, it’ll also help the photographer understand your creative requirements, leading to a better photograph.
2. Evaluate Portfolio Quality
You now have your goals laid out. The next thing to do is to find and review several photographer’s portfolios.
A lot of the time, portfolios from photographers are very in-depth. There are hundreds and sometimes even thousands of different photos to look at.
Our portfolio, for instance, has various different examples of photographs. From fashion photography all the way to professional headshots.
What you’ll want to do is go through a photographer’s portfolio and determine whether they’re the right person for your goals and ambitions.
3. Consider Their Experience Level
Once you’ve reviewed their portfolio, it’s always a good idea to better understand their experience. Experience should also be compared to price.
Typically speaking, less experienced photographers are more expensive than more experienced photographers.
4. Check for Client Testimonials
To get extra confirmation on their skillset, look for real client testimonials. You may find these on social media, on their website, or even on review platforms like Trustpilot.
5. Meet with Them
If, after all of the above, a photographer still looks promising for your project, contact them. During this, you can gain a complete understanding of whether you want to hire the person or not based on their price, availability, skill set, and personality.
How to Prepare for a Business Headshot Session
1. Wardrobe Choices
A common question we receive is, “What do we wear for professional headshots?”. And the answer? Well, it depends. It depends on your creative objectives.
For example, a lawyer getting a headshot photo will dress formally and professionally. In contrast, a chef may just wear an apron and shirt.
When it comes to choosing what to wear, just think about the industry and brand. If your brand is known for being funny, be funny. If your brand is known for being professional, be professional.
2. Grooming Tips
Regardless of whether it’s professional or not, whoever gets a headshot should be well-groomed.
Hair, facial grooming, and makeup should be done prior to the session. It should also be cleaned and represent the company.
3. Posing Practice
Anyone can pose for a headshot photo, even those that don’t think they can. Plus, the cameraperson can adjust angles to suit your pose.
If you want to practice, you can do it. Just look directly in front of a mirror. You can even take a few selfies from different angles to get used to the camera being in front of your face.
4. Getting Comfortable
Headshots aren’t for everyone. We get it. Regardless, they’re important, and you’ll likely need to get one if you’re in a professional setting.
To relax, get used to being in front of a camera. Taking deep breaths and just loosening your muscles can also make you feel better about the situation.
Plus, you’ll have a professional by your side. The photographer will tell you exactly what to do, so trust their guidance.
When and Why to Update Your Business Headshot
As a rule of thumb, you should be changing your headshot every 2 to 3 years. You may want to update your headshot sooner if:
- You’ve had a major career change (for example, a promotion or career switch)
- You’ve had a significant change in your appearance (for example, a new hairstyle)
- You’re rebranding your personal brand or company
Pretty much, whether there’s a major change in your professional career. This will ensure that potential clients or partners aren’t confused when they meet you in person.
Conclusion
As you can see, professional headshots play a huge role for individuals and businesses. They’re a very powerful trust-building tool that we believe everyone should have.
If you’re considering getting a headshot or a series of headshots for your company, feel free to contact us at Masoud Raoufi. We’ve been helping businesses in the UAE with their headshots for over 12 years and want to help you also.
1 Comment
zoritoler imol
December 20, 2024Great post. I am facing a couple of these problems.