Professional Headshots - What Does Your Say About You?
A couple of weeks ago we shot a new Linkedin headshot for Kishen.
Kishen is a young go-getter in the IT world and currently works in the mining industry. However his Linkedin profile shot was not doing him any favours. Like many people on Linkedin, Kishen had taken his own at work, in this case it was whilst he was out on site but, well you can take a look for yourself.
Really the key points I'd like to pick out here are around composition and lighting.
As you can see by Kishen's original photo there was lots of sky, and whilst that's nice to see, we're on Linkedin to look at and make contact with people. And my second point which links quite nice with composition is lighting - in that because Kishen is a good bloke and follows safety rules on site, he has kept his safety hat on we can really see who he is. His face is in shadow and being able to identify its him is made more difficult due to the distance from the camera.
So we lined up a session with Kishen and shot some new headshots for him. Lets take a look at some of what we came up with.
Quicker than Michael Schumacher, Kishen swapped in his chosen picture to Linkedin and his profile was updated. Kirshen's response was as follows:
"My professional head shoot was quite a success due to Bruce's combination of technical skill and a friendly attitude.
The comparison between my old/new photos is quite noticeable due to his coaching regarding body language and posture. "
So his profile now stands out, we can see who he is and his profile (or personal brand) is more recognisable. But there are a couple more learning points that might be valid for those thinking about changing over their Linkedin profile picture. And that is the search bar.
When you start to look for someone or something you'll use the search bar. The images displayed are very small, so you need to consider how your image stands out from others. Again this falls back to composition and positioning.
As humans we are more likely to click on a picture that engages with us, and that's why your profile picture is important. For Linkedin it is a first impression, but unlike other first impressions your impression might not be bad, it could be completely missed.
I don't think that's the case with Kishen's new profile shot.His personal brand now says; confident, professional and approachable.
So our prompting question today is... how do you represent yourself, your personal brand for work? Does it say the right things about you?
If you'd like to chat about headshots for your business, please feel free to get in contact
