Headshots + Environmental Portraits

Photography!

Painting and Fiber Art are tens of thousands of years old. They are the earliest traces of human life, existence, and creativity we have. By contrast, the very earliest photographs we have are just approaching their 200th birthdays. Film, in a modern sense, is less than 150 years old. The earliest digital cameras are 40-50 years old. The first phone camera is about 20 years old. The iPhone is 17 years old. Photography is the combination of that 150-or-so-year-old film, with the camera. The camera is much older than film. The camera is over 1,000 years old.

Headshots & Environmental Portraits

These are two different types of images that are great to have for your:

• Website
• Resume
• LinkedIn
• Other Social Media
• Electronic Applications
• When you’re speaking somewhere

A headshot is exactly what it sounds like – a picture of your head! These are very useful. If you give a talk somewhere — and I encourage you, especially graduating seniors, to look for these kinds of opportunities, they’re all over! — they may use your photo on their website and/or printed material. In both cases, your image might only be an inch tall or so. With such a tiny image, if the photo of you is any wider than just your head, your face will only be a couple of pixels. A headshot is the perfect thing for applications like this, social media, etc.

Think in career terms. Take an image of yourself that presents you in the best light. If your career is Tattoo Artist, that’s one look to think about and cultivate. If you’re looking at a more traditional career, a more traditional image might serve you well. Try to take a great picture!

Portrait Background

One thing that really ruins a headshot is a busy background. They’re distracting! There are two ways that professional photographers solve this. The first is a portrait background in a photo studio. This can be a gigantic roll of colored paper or a painted canvas background. In both cases, it’s clean and minimal and lets all the attention be on you.

The other solution in professional photography is Shallow Depth of Field or Background Blur. By blurring the background, you soften all that distraction and, again, let your face shine through. Background Blur is also known as Bokeh. Until recently you couldn’t do this with a phone because to get it you need physically large and expensive “glass” (lenses). Higher-end phones today have Fokeh (“fake bokeh”). Fokeh is achieved not through large glass, but through computational photography. Phone cameras optically suck compared to “real” cameras. However, the computational photography in phones blows away the crude computation in the best cameras from Sony, Canon, Nikon, et al.

If your phone has Fokeh, give it a try. Results can range all the way from lame to awesome! If your phone doesn’t, no worries. Look for a very simple, neutral background. It’s unlikely that you’ll have photography lights, but use house lamps, utility lights, whatever you’ve got to add a bit of light. Outdoors, shade is usually a good way to avoid harsh shadows.

Please don’t just flip through your phone photos and turn in the crappiest photo of yourself you can find. Take some time and create an image you’d actually want to use on your Resume, Website, LinkedIn, Speaker Posters, etc.

Environmental Portrait

As I’ve said, Headshots are great for use in small places. It has to be tight on you or I won’t see anything. Still, other than “Hi, I’m human!” a headshot doesn’t tell us that much about you. Something that can tell us a lot about you is an Environmental Portrait. Once again, what this term means is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It’s a portrait of you in your environment. Perhaps something like:

• Construction Management – hard hat @ job site
• Nursing – stethoscope & uniform
• Marine Biology – mud boots, camera, notebook, stomping around in wetlands
• CECS – could be monitors with code, but could also be you “coworking” at a Starbucks with coffee & laptop – this could also be a good image for a Graphic Designer, etc
• Fashion Merchandising – doing Fashion Merchandising! Working in a window, on a mannequin, etc
• Dance – you, maybe in leotard & tights, or “yoga clothes” in a dance studio
• Business – could be a computer again, or information on posters – put on a suit and try to take your picture somewhere fancier than your bedroom. Or, in the age of Pandemic & Zoom – maybe it’s you photographed off a monitor in a Zoom meeting. You could use the “grid view”, but only show bits of the speakers around you, focus on your awesome professional presence.

Think professional! There are all kinds of great Environmental Portraits to create. Turning again to our Tattoo Artist, you in a shop with a client’s arm could be a fantastic image. But, again, most of you are heading toward more traditional professions than that. Do an Internet Image Search, for example: “Environmental Portrait Biologist”, and see how people who do what you do present themselves.

Useful

I hope our ideas & activities every week of summer are ultimately useful in your life and career. Some weeks that usefulness might be a bit abstract. This week, it’s right on the nose! I hope you take great pictures and that you use them! Use them on your LinkedIn profile and other social media.

Your Canvas Post

1. Take a great Headshot
2. Create a great Environmental Portrait
3. Post them on Canvas
4. You don’t have to write anything this week. Just take great pictures!