How to Create the Best Look for your LinkedIn Headshot

Your LinkedIn profile picture is the first thing someone sees when they view your profile, creating an immediate first impression in as little as 80ms. So how do you create the right look? This is where an experienced headshot photographer should be able to guide you and provide a session where you can work together to develop the best look to suit your needs.

First, start with who your target audience is – if you’re looking for a new position, then understanding the “norms” for that position in terms of clothing is a good start, along the norms for typical companies you’d want to work for. For example, if you are a software engineer looking to join a startup, wearing a suit and tie is probably not the right look for you. Whatever type of clothing you decide on, bring various options (colors, color combinations, etc) and discuss with your photographer. Often what looks great in person does not look as good under the lights.

Now that you’ve decided on the type of clothing and color, your photographer should work with you to explore other key elements that work together to create looks:

Lighting – lighting plays a critical role in the look of a headshot. It can convey a mood/seriousness, but it needs to be used carefully and deliberately in order to achieve the best results. For example, shadows are often used to create a more serious look in images vs. more even lighting. Yet if not used properly, shadows can highlight skin imperfections or make people look older than they really are (and most people don’t like to look older in images!).

Background color – most professional headshots today are shot against a neutral color background (grey, black, or white) so as to keep the viewer’s eye focused on the face. But what is the right choice? It depends on a number of factors, including the type of lighting, clothing type/colors, hair/skin color, expression of the subject, etc..

Expression – perhaps the most important element of a successful headshot is the expression of the subject – the eyes and mouth in particular. Expressions that look genuine, whether they’re smiling or serious, grab the viewer’s attention leave them with an impression that the image looks real, not posed. For example, when a person genuinely laughs or smiles, the mouth and the eyes smile and are in sync. The eyes slightly “squinch” (the lower lids push up towards the upper lids) – in fact, if you were to cover over the person’s mouth, you would guess they are smiling just by looking at their eyes. That’s one of the reasons why people’s high school year book portraits generally look awful – the subject is asked to smile and they do so with their mouth only, while their eyes convey the fact that they hate having their picture taken.

So how do these elements come together to create the best look for you? Here’s some examples from a recent session where we worked to create different looks, showing how different lighting, clothing combinations, and expressions can be used to create different feelings:

In this case, the background color remained the same, but notice the difference in the lighting between the first image and the others. Then look at the different expressions combined with the lighting differences. Note the difference in feeling between the images with a broader smile vs. a slight smile. There’s no right or wrong here – but each image conveys a different message.

In the next example below, we tried different background colors to determine the best options, while keeping the same clothing and similar expressions:

Again, either background works – however it’s important to note that the eye is generally drawn to lighter areas of an image, and ideally you want the face to be the primary focal point/attraction for the eye. A darker background generally will more readily direct the eye towards the subject’s face – but this should not be the only criteria for selecting a background color.

To learn more about headshot sessions and pricing, go to www.barrybraunsteinphotography.com/rates