Great Portraits of Great Realtors!

This morning I had the pleasure of doing some business portraits. I like doing them because I like business people and I can make them look AWESOME. A lot of business people skimp on their portraits and I think that’s a HUGE mistake. There’s nothing worse than an amateur looking portrait on a business card or in a printed advertisement. It screams “Don’t hire me, I don’t know what I’m doing” Just because they can’t see the difference doesn’t mean that others can’t. And, the people that really CAN see the difference are usually the best prospects. So it is important to make a good impression on them. So, the message for the day is “Put your best face forward with a professionally created portrait… By Bender Photography of course

Don’t underestimate the power of a headshot

 

The other day we did some headshots for a woman running for office.  I have some definite ideas about headshots and their use (or mis-use) in advertising.  So let me spout off for a bit.

 

First, if you are in a business where it is important to sell yourself, as opposed to selling some sort of widget, then a headshot is very important.  We regularly create headshots for realtors, politicians, actors and models.  Those are the “regular” clients for headshots and we do a lot of them.  But there are literally hundreds of other occupations where a good portrait would be beneficial.

My gripe with most headshots or business portraits that are out in the world is that they are usually so unimaginative.  It amazes me that a __________ (you fill in the blank, realtor, politician, salesman, actor, whatever)  will try to impress whoever they are trying to impress with such lackluster photos.  They will spend a fortune on clothing, a vehicle, sales classes, acting classes, cosmetic surgery, hair styling, an impressive office — literally everything imaginable to present a good professional image to get whatever job they are seeking.  Then they will drop the ball completely when it comes to capturing all of that in a photo.

Political campaign portraits are usually pretty boring (with my recent client being an exception)  Their photos  often look like bad yearbook photos from the old days.  If you put them all side to side, they all look the same.

The worst headshots are when people have their friends do the photography.  Anyone can take a picture, but getting a good portrait is more about getting the lighting and pose right.  Most amateurs (and even a lot of supposed professionals) are completely clueless in that regard.  So instead of taking the subject that they have and making it look better, they actually make their subject look worse.

The woman that I photographed the other day (and I’m not mentioning her name because we have a policy of not mixing politics with business) was being photographed for the second time by our studio.  Not because the first batch was bad.  But because the first set was good!

She said that she was the only candidate amongst all of her field of competitors that had a professional portrait made — and that she was getting favorable remarks about that.

We spent an hour or so creating more headshots on different backgrounds.  Then we went into an office setting and did some more photos there.  She’s creating a nice little library of images that she can use throughout her campaign and they all make her look great.

If you are going to do the job, you might as well do it right.