Headshot Preparation Tips for Women

Our Headshot Preparation Tips for Women blog post offers a few helpful portrait suggestions for Business Headshot Preparation.

Following are two other pages you may find of interest:

• Basic Headshot Preparation Tips
• Headshot Preparation Tips for Men

Headshot Preparation Tips for Women

SHIRT/BLOUSE

STYLE
The most crucial element for women is the necessity for sleeves—preferably to the elbow or longer. In general, a professional look equates to simplicity, so forgoing froufrou (ruffles, frills, and ribbons) is prudent.

PATTERN
A plain, non-patterned shirt or blouse always works best. If patterned, a very subtle one is acceptable.

MATERIAL
Shirts that work best do not readily wrinkle and bounce back when scrunched.

COLOR
Avoid pastels unless a sweet, soft look is intended. Darker tones engender a greater sense of credibility, competence, and trust.

FIT
In general, a looser fit is preferable to a tight-fitting blouse. Choose a snug-fitting blouse only when there are no weight concerns. Otherwise, the tight look can easily add around 20 extra pounds of “visual” weight. Though some degree of cleavage is acceptable, too much can communicate a message one might not intend.

JACKET/DRESS

STYLE
Think “professional,” and you should do just fine. Again, simplicity is the key. Also, remember the audience you wish to attract and narrow your focus to speak to your target market.

PATTERN
A plain, non-patterned jacket always works best. If patterned, a very subtle one is acceptable.

MATERIAL
As with shirts/blouses, the best fabric does not easily wrinkle and bounces back when scrunched.

COLOR
By far, darker colors tend to be your best choice. Darker tones are not only viewed as being more professional (especially for women) but engender a healthier and slimmer persona:

Black: stirs a sense of creativity and protection, as well as power, seduction, authority, and nimbleness.

Navy: evokes a feeling of trustworthiness, integrity, caring, credibility, conservativeness, orderliness, calm, and loyalty.

Dark Brown: practical, solid, reassuring, reliable/dependable, friendly, stable, wholesome, and genuine.

Dark Green: masculine, vitality, dependable, tactful, family, nurturing, flexible, conservative, and wealthy.

Deep Purple: feminine, romantic, luxurious, inventive, intuitive, mysterious, wealthy, and sophisticated.

Deep Red/Burgundy: harmonious, balanced, supportive, imaginative, spiritual, kind, and non-conformist.

Dark Gray: knowledgable/wise, classic, mature, sleek, refined, dignified, controlled, and contemporary.

FIT
The primary concern for any garment is tightness. While you cannot go wrong with a jacket/dress that is a skosh too loose, a garment that is too snug evokes negative attributes of being disheveled and careless – both of which are not only non-conducive to evoking a positive sense of who you are and what you represent but are decisions made about you at the subconscious level. You’re rejected, yet they cannot tell you why.

Therefore, a comfortable, loose fit is vital. Where our clients are unsuccessful in this fundamental requisite, we are equipped to remedy the oversight in post-production retouching.

SCARFS

We recommend keeping patterns simple and colors subdued. Again, the idea is to keep the viewer’s gaze fixed upon your eyes/face, not an abundance of colors and patterns.

Scarfs, by their nature, tend to be heavily patterned. Therefore, unless you desire your headshot to be more about your scarf than you, please select a simple and muted scarf pattern. Avoid orange, yellow, and iridescent hues. Suppose you are interested in learning about color psychology. In that case, the following is a link to my blog post, Tie Color Reveals The Man, which has applications relevant to scarf color selection.

Need help in tying a scarf? Here’s a helpful link that’ll get you up to speed quickly: 37 Ways To Tie A Scarf, or for a simpler version, check out 15 Ways to Tie Scarves.

EYEGLASSES

ALL glasses present two essential challenges:

1. glass glare
2. distortion (eyes and temples)

Both aberrations can be remedied with judicious retouching, which is included with our Pro Retouching. However, for the best possible results, we recommend either wearing Non-Glare glasses or arranging with your Optometrist to remove your lenses before your session. Eye/temple distortion is much easier to restore than eyes being obliterated by glass glare.

Glasses without a non-glare coating are problematic, at best—we do not recommend regular glasses for portraits. The resulting glare can be light (easy to remove) or severe, requiring a complete rebuilding of the eyes.
Non-glare glasses work wonderfully and generally are no problem. However, depending on the degree and location of the soft-green glow, non-glare can still present a challenge, as can distortion caused by thicker lenses.
NOTE: Contact Lenses work well, though they can cause a bluish ring around the iris.

EXPRESSION

Bring a happy heart, and your smile will take care of itself. Remember, your session should only take a few minutes. It’s short enough to turn off the outside pressures of the day and simply be present.
• Smile Challenged? If so, practice in front of the mirror, remembering the feeling of a natural smile.
• Also, a helpful technique is something we call “Lifting Your Apples.” The roundness of our cheeks is referred to as “apples.” When a smile is required but challenging on cue, “lift your apples” while placing your tongue in the roof of your mouth, and a smile will emerge.

NOTE: Mark’s goal is to capture a range of expressions, from broad smiles to soft smiles on both sides of your face. This way, you can evaluate not only which expression you prefer but also which side of the face best expresses it.

MAKEUP

Whatever makeup application you generally employ, we suggest a slightly heavier application for portraits. Lips and Eyebrows are critical in portraits. Both should be defined nicely. However, we are also happy to help with post-production retouching if you feel they need more attention.

MAKEUP ARTIST

If you prefer to hire a makeup artist, please inform the artist we are using digital capture. Also, remember that unless you have particular makeup needs, it’s less expensive to request post-production retouching from us than to hire a makeup artist.

JEWELRY

SIMPLICITY is the key.

Necklaces that photograph best are simple with no center focal point design. Even though we can center a necklace feature (such as a diamond or cross), it may not appear to be so in the image—so much depends on how your body is turned. Generally, this is not a detriment for most people; however, the slight off-center feel can cause heartburn for perfectionists like Mark…

Earrings that photograph best are simple and small. Dangling earrings can be problematic, as with a head tilt, the earrings will hang freely on one side while falling askew on the other side of the face.

Bracelets and watches do not generally become an issue in a headshot portrait. However, if your hands might show, please keep any jewelry simple so that it does not distract and draw attention away from your face.

In the meantime, and as always, should you have questions regarding any aspect of professional headshots or our Headshot Preparation Tips for Women, no concern is too small.

Lorin Backe

Headshot Preparation Tips for Women

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When looking for an Orange County Headshots Photographer please call 949-713-4050 or complete our online request form.

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Orange County Headshots Photographer Lorin Backe is internationally recognized and serves all of Southern California, including San Diego County, Los Angeles, and the Inland Empire.