Headshots and Business Portraits

Mike Browne photographs model Abbie at her house to show low-tech headshots without studio lighting, warning against dappled sun and cluttered backgrounds. He checks hair and make-up, finds backlit and shaded spots in the garden with a reflector, then moves to the kitchen, where blinds and windows give wraparound light.

Fstoppers introduces Dylan Patrick's location headshot system, built for consistent, stylised results anywhere with at most two speedlights. Patrick zooms a 70-200mm to 200mm to melt a car-park background, sets a backlight parallel to the key and uses high-speed sync at 1/1250 and f/3.2 rather than f/7.1 at 1/250.

Jay P. Morgan shoots three corporate headshot looks in half an hour: a softbox key and gridded rim light against white flagged to grey, a black reflector cover for a dark background, and environmental portraits by the office windows with a strobe outside, all on an 85mm lens.

Peter Hurley's Depth of Field 2019 talk traces his path from a natural-light apartment to a Manhattan studio, coaching site and speaking career, urging photographers to charge and build multiple income streams. He rates images by lookability, stresses consistency and shows a trade-show portrait lit with Westcott LEDs.

Karl Taylor explains business portrait priorities: the images represent the company rather than the individual, so clarify the brief and aim for confident, approachable subjects through better posture. He covers neutral grey backgrounds, storing paper rolls vertically, building lighting one light at a time and favouring a large softbox.

Peter Hurley runs through five headshot essentials with model Johanna: forehead out and chin down for the jawline, three angles to find the best side, a slight squinch for confidence, a hint of a smile rather than a forced grin for approachability, and a camera slightly below eye level.

Matt Spaugh shoots about 400 school headshots alone over three days, stressing organisation: a spreadsheet of names and ID numbers, classes arriving alphabetically, and a school-provided assistant who feeds him numbers and satisfies his never-alone-with-students contract. Settings are f/5.6 and 1/200, with a Godox AD200 in a 43-inch softbox.

Peter Hurley visits Chicago headshot photographer Mike Sansone, who moved from theatre school, Papa John's and school-bus driving to full-time headshots after finding Hurley's jawline tutorial. Sansone explains the email workflow behind his bookings: follow-ups with headshot tips, invoicing and scheduling sequences, and requests for Google and Yelp reviews.

Peter Hurley works with Marina on what he calls the final ingredient of portraiture: direction. With gear, settings and lights locked down and repeatable, he concentrates on connection, using his hook-in-the-head, lasso-on-the-collarbones and string-to-the-lens cues to bring the jaw forward, sending arms down out of frame and avoiding over-tilting.

Karl Taylor critiques member images from a live session for recurring business portrait errors: a shoulder exposed brighter than the face, cluttered equipment overpowering the hero subject, uneven forehead tones fixed with curves-based burning and dodging, and small distractions such as a wire seemingly growing from a chef's head.