Headshots

Last night, even though it was -30C, I went out to do some headshots of my friends. Normally I am fine with headshots as it isn't hard. Set up a light, get them to twist their body a little bit, tilt the head, chin up, and.. done. But when it comes to friends, I always get nervous.

Usually the subject will simply do whatever you say, but when you are friends with them it becomes a harder task to get them into a pose. I become less directorial and end up just hanging out, trying less drastic things to get it right. Lucky for me it came together really well.

Cai and Anna are twin sisters who are both in journalism and so they need a decent headshot for any contributor pages they are in. Obviously some of these images are just thrown in for fun, but I think it captures their personality well.


This set up was black on black with two lights: a shoot through umbrella at 1/8th power as my key, and a umbrella bounce at 1/128th to fill in shadows. I put a light behind Cai to seperate her from the background. She might not be able to use it as a headshot for a magazine, but she looks amazing with the light coming through her hair like that.

I think the hardest part of this shoot was trying to get a natural smile out of Anna as she tends to smile with her mouth only and eliminates her eyes from the equation. The outtakes are hilarious but the photos where her smile is natural are beautiful.

In the end the photos came out nicely and I worried for nothing. Pretty photos of two elegant girls shouldn't be that hard. I'm not sure what I was thinking.

More to come.