POST YOUR HEADSHOTS!

NASS Photo wrote in post #17679972
Mike_311. Love the shots. She is beautiful.

thanks, she will be 40 this coming January.

NASS Photo wrote in post #17679972
Mike_311. Love the shots. She is beautiful.

x2!

My very first shots with my DSLR... still a lot to learn.

I wanna join here. Love headshots too.

Speaking of headshots, will you guys tell us the essentials of headshots aside from the lighting? What are the important characteristic of a headshot?

my first share.

well a head shot is generally a shot of the head. :P

seriously though, head shots arent meant to overly depict a photographic style or convey emotion, they are meant to be a clean and efficient way of showing someones physical appearance for some business or commercial aspect.

when photographer start getting all artsy and stylist with head shots, they arent really head shots any longer and some places may actually reject using or allowing them to be used.

they photography should be of high quality to stand out but not take over the subjects presence. this sounds much more complicated than it is in practice. there are all sort of tried and true method to producing headshots and it just a matter of mimicking them and adding your own twist without getting outlandish.

when doing head shots, a conservative approach is usually the best one.

FWIW there arent too many headshot in this thread that really qualify as headshots, but headshots are boring

i'm only clarifying since you asked, this thread is a very loose depiction of what a headshot should be.

this is a headshot, simple and boring but the technicals are important.

thank you for sharing your knowledge what really a headshot should be. So the connection between you/camera and the subject is important and a must?

vinmunoz wrote in post #17682604
thank you for sharing your knowledge what really a headshot should be. So the connection between you/camera and the subject is important and a must?

headshots serve a particular purpose and they generally arent for depicting photographer style (there are popular exceptions, Peter Hurley for example). Their purpose is to simply show someone what you look like, not how good of a model you can be.

once you get away from what makes them distinct, you are shooting portraits.

of course the photographer has a plethora of lighting style in which to choose.

I think the composition is also very important for a headshot. Not too much negative space above or below the actual head. In your picture I would of maybe cropped out much of the negative space above her head and some of her body (maybe just below her shoulders). Just my 2 cents. Have a great day!!!

Thank you guys. that's informative.

mike_311 wrote in post #17682508
well a head shot is generally a shot of the head. :P


this is a headshot, simple and boring but the technicals are important.

Hosted photo: posted by mike_311 in
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forum: People

i'd argue this is not.

Hosted photo: posted by mike_311 in
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forum: People

thank you for the clarifications.

its important to make the distinction because if a client comes to you and say they need head shots, they are asking for a very specific thing.

in the course of this thread, i think we can a bit loose because as i said earlier, head shots are boring and its fun to experiment.

Trying out my studio set up, not done yet but couldn't resist trying out what i had. CC welcome as I'm new to this, model is my daughter.

rickmar1905 wrote in post #17685327
Trying out my studio set up, not done yet but couldn't resist trying out what i had. CC welcome as I'm new to this, model is my daughter.

Hosted photo: posted by rickmar1905 in
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forum: People

Hosted photo: posted by rickmar1905 in
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forum: People

They are both nice images; hopefully she will continue to agree to model for you for a long time to come.

Since you asked for CC, there are some elements in the second photo that I find distracting. The eyes seem a bit dull, and when I looked closer to try and figure out why that was, I spotted the very obvious reflections of the photographer (I presume you) and the softbox and the background. I don't know that the reflections per se are the issue - they show up in a lot of photos of eyes, but since the eyes themselves aren't drawing my attention the reflections really stand out and they're what I focus on. It's like they are subduing the eyes rather than accenting them if that makes any sense.

The other things are the 3 or 4 stray fibers that almost seem to be going into the nostril and the pimple under the nose. A few seconds spent cleaning those up would, I think, really enhance the image.

Thanks for sharing.