Photographers in the Hotseat - Creating a Headshot

Last week, my colleague and friend Kevin Harkins, of Harkins Photography in Londonderry, NH, suggested that we get together and refresh our headshots. I thought, what an awesome idea! So we met up at my studio in Kevin's hometown of Lowell and proceeded to watch each other work, first-hand. We were each in that seat that you all dread! It was incredibly interesting just to see how the other approached the lighting and compositions. What I was struck by was how we each produced photos that were distinctly different and still incredibly consistent with our own personal styles, even though we were shooting in the exact same setting.

Here are my favorite shots that I created of Kevin. Watch for Kevin's shots of me on his blog at: http://harkinsphoto.wordpress.com/

...or just look at one of his masterpieces here on my site: http://www.adrienbisson.com/about/

Kevin Harkins

Professional Portraits vs. Happy Accidents - We're Making Photographs, not Taking Them

There's a term that applies to a certain type of photograph that you may be familiar with. The term is "happy accident". It's generally a pretty loaded term. It can be an insult directed at a photographer who may have created an image that is good, or even great, but the person wielding the phrase feels that the good image is an exception rather than the rule, based on that person's perception of the artist's work. It can also be used by a photographer to describe his or her own photograph, implying, not so subtly, that the image in question was acquired by luck, clean living, or some other reason not directly related to skill or artistry.

Hobbyists tend to thrive on happy accidents. I don't mean this as a criticism! If photography is something that you love, just for the fun and satisfaction that it brings, there is nothing at all to be ashamed of! For professional photographers, happy accidents are things that you will certainly take if they make themselves available, but cannot be relied upon to pay the rent. Its a little like winning the lottery; I'll take it, but lottery winning is not a livelihood.

As a professional portrait photographer, your goal is to 'create a photograph'. I really prefer that phrase to 'taking a photograph'. The difference is one of mindset. Am I showing up, putting up some lights so that the subject won't be in the dark and then snapping away, hoping for some kind of intervention? Not a chance! You need to walk into the studio or onto a location with a frame of mind totally focused on making a great photograph. You are creating a work of art, no matter how mundane or commercial the assignment might be. The location is sized up. A series of shot options is internalized, discussed with assistants and possibly the subject, any lighting that is necessary is set up, furniture is almost always moved(*). Then, photographs are made.

There are so many things to take in and consider when you are about to create photographs at a professional commercial level: how subjects or models will be portrayed, composition, lighting, style, props, distractions, etc.. You can't just walk in and start shooting, hoping for some happy accidents. You need a concept, and an ability to execute it. Once things are starting to fire on all cylinders in a given context, the shooting can commence in earnest. I make a lot of shots when I am creating portraits. But the activity is directed and intentional. Often, when discussing an upcoming shoot, the subject may ask, "how long will it take, a few minutes?". Um...no. It's important to explain to the subject that this takes preparation, must look great, both for the client and the subject, and while accidents happen, both happy and otherwise, we are making photographs. Really good photographs. Which is my job.

Just Some Photos that I Like!

When I blog, I like to write something that readers will hopefully find interesting and will compel them to read and look further. It's often a challenge, as I don't feel like a writer. As photographers, we communicate with our images. Ultimately, that's what I hope will draw people in. I know it won't be my words, but I hope that my words will serve as an introduction to my work.

This time, I only have my images. As a commercial photographer, I spend a lot of time creating photographs that are not strictly artistic. While artistry is involved, their role in life is largely utilitarian. That is true in a business sense, but the discerning client knows that they are more than that; they serve to evoke an emotion in the viewer. The esthetic value may be subtle, but it's there. That's why I can only shake my head in disbelief when I see a cell phone self portrait or a red cup party shot used as a business headshot. People! Potential clients are judging you, possibly unfairly, based on an initial impression. You've heard this rant before, I'm sure.

So since I have nothing to say today ;-), I thought I would post some business portraits and some actor headshots that I did recently and that I really like.

The first bunch of shots are of a young actress and dancer.

I also had the privilege of photographing this Boston attorney, who also does legal commentary on a TV network. She really understands the value of good images!

Spring Cleaning of the Mind

Is it a headshot, or is it a portrait? I get a fair number of calls from people looking for a headshot. They are often business people who are told that they need to get a headshot taken for their employer's web site, or they are in business for themselves and they are working with a professional to improve their branding and on-line presence. They are often actors or musicians too, who need a headshot in order to audition. But this "headshot" thing... I think the term is complicit in the dumbing down of the concept in popular perception. If all they needed was a shot of their head, the arm's length iPhone self-portrait would do (or should I call it a self-headshot? Self-inflicted headshot?), as would scanning their driver's license photo, although there may be copyright issues there ;-) Clearly, neither approach would be acceptable to a casting director or a marketing/branding consultant.


The ease with which we can all create digital photographs of exceptional technical quality has made professional photography a difficult pursuit. Consequently, there are many photographers who, out of desperation I think, will be willing to do a $20 headshot. I will not. Art can never be a commodity. Once it becomes a commodity it cedes its place as art. A professional must value himself or herself as an artist.

Now there is nothing in the slightest wrong with a traditional approach to a headshot. In fact, many purposes for what a headshot is used have specific requirements and norms for such shots. That being said, artistry does matter. An artist will fulfill the client's requirements and then go the extra distance to make the session matter. Other artists, such as performers, are easier to convince, but it's often difficult to persuade business people of the value of really great photography, especially when they are the subject. But when you see or think of the best kinds of business branding and marketing, the photography is never mundane or perfunctory. It's extraordinary and special. It's art.

If you have read some of my previous posts you may recognise a couple of these people. Some of these "headshots" were done in the course of doing environmental portraits for them. But these headshots are portraits just the same! They are unique and in each case I have made an attempt to bring out the personality in each individual while creating an esthetically pleasing experience. A photographer who cares and who values his or her work and artistic sensibilities is worth investing in.

Location Portrait Photography That Tells a Story

I love working with professional people who understand the value of story telling with their on-line photography. This executive wanted a traditional head-shot for certain applications, but also wanted a series of location portraits that would tell a story about who he is, what he does and would present a professional, sophisticated image. Photographing at an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the goal was to show him instructing and interacting with his clients, as well as simple portraits in an office environment that would convey his professionalism and friendliness.

What's The Difference?

As a freelancer, two of my roles in this operation are marketing and sales. I hear all of the experts: branding blah blah blah differentiation blah blah blah engaging blah blah blah. Can you hear it? Obviously that's all important and unless I or someone I hire does that for me, I will be a very lonely freelancer indeed. It's a given that exposure to the right audience is essential. There is a ton of advice out there on the tubes of the internets as to how to go about making that happen.

But what makes what I do different from all of the other photographers out there who are marketing to the same people? I have actually read articles that say things like: 'you don't have to be the best photographer to be a success'. While that may seem encouraging if you, like most of us, have insecurities about your work, it's also a really convenient excuse to let up on pushing yourself to create more and better work. The race to the middle! Is that where success lies?

If 5 photographers make themselves visible to a potential client through their effective marketing and sales efforts, and they all seem to be the same in the eyes of that potential client, which one does she choose? (If no one raises their hand I will have to call on someone!)  The answer is: they choose one at random, or one who answers their email request for a bid. Clearly, there are other factors that, in the real world, come into play such as a usable web site, as opposed to one that re-sizes the browser, plays music, has slippery, ever moving and morphing navigation controls that scream: GET ME OUT OF HERE! What other factors might make a potential client choose one photographer over another, all things seeming equal? Proximity of the photographer, referrals and references, the consistent message put forth in their web presence, etc.

Have I led you up to the precipice of the obvious yet? What's the real differentiator? Remember, if no one raises their hand...  Answer: It's the work!  Photographer Nick Onken has written a good piece here that you should take a look at, BUT COME BACK! http://nickonken.com/blog/2011/01/the-quality-diversity-of-your-product.html

People have a penchant for sameness much of the time. Kids don't want to be different. It seems to be an instinct at some point in our human development. At times it does makes sense to emulate success. That's clearly valuable as a learning tool. I think where it becomes destructive is when it is a mantra, such as the misguided conventional wisdom that standardized testing of school children is going to generate a well educated population. I can tell you that if there had been a standardized test to graduate from high school when I was that age, I might still be there now trying to pass it. But say such a methodology were to be successful. What has been accomplished? Millions of identically informed people who have never been encouraged to be different, to think critically or to be creative. There's a prescription for success...

Assuming that your marketing and sales thing has been taken care of, although it is always ongoing, and the presentation of your work is of a high quality and consistent, both on-line and in person (read: have a great book*), THE most important thing is the work and how it is better, more creative and different than all of the others from whom a client might choose. It's so important to keep pushing yourself, to keep growing and stretching, both technically and artistically. And equally important is to push yourself to do personal projects as well as the work you do for business. Hopefully, you soon will be able to see the two come closer together so that the work that people hire you to do is the kind that you love to do.

*If you are not sure of what I am referring to at the asterisk, please call my friend Selina Maitreya, or read one of her books!      http://selinamaitreya.com/

I have sprinkled this post with some recent work that I like, for no other reason than to show it. Plus getting it out there will force me to go out and create more :-)  So here are even more!

Starting with One Light

I often go into an environmental portrait shoot with a bunch of great ideas. Within the first 15 minutes or so you can often find them on the floor around where we are shooting. There's a tension between being prepared and ending up being too rigid in my approach. So I like to show up with a bunch of things that I have thought through, which I try to use as a guide as we shoot, but it's also important to just follow where things naturally lead.

When photographing one person though, I tend to start out thinking about how I can do so using one light. It's really important to consider available light too. One habit (not sure whether it is a bad or good one) that photographers who use flash have can be to simply assume that flash is always necessary. When shooting a particular kind of work, it is difficult to imagine shooting it with only available light. The real issue there is, if you are expected to get the shot and it needs to be of a certain style and technical quality, it's crazy to hope that available light will be your friend when you arrive at a location. On the other hand though, it is important not to discount the possibility of unbelievably good available light, and only that. I know, current digital cameras have unheard of high ISO functionality, and that is a great tool. But that table lamp is not always casting the best light on your subject, or that fluorescent fixture on the ceiling may not be the look that the commercial client is going after. So I bring lights.

Last week I photographed an excellent musician, Alex Prezzano, both in my studio and in a few locations around the building. He was great! Alex wanted me to create and had no interest in dictating a style to me. So we walked around the mill where my studio is located and did some setups. My goal was to have the shots look as natural as possible. The available light was not always what I needed, so I used one light. The little secret is that moving around a location like this with a speedlight on a stand makes things much less nuts too.

Alex Prezzano

A lot of people are put off by any shadow on the wall. I love the look of one light with an simple reflecting umbrella. If there's a shadow, well, there's a shadow. Light makes shadows where it cannot fall. Rembrandt was partial to that look too, as I recall. No, I didn't know him personally...he lived in Europe.

After taking the photo walk around my building, we landed back in my studio. If a client wants a traditional look for a headshot, I use at least two lights and one or two reflectors. But here we were still going for a more dramatic look, so my default starting point is always that single light source. Here I did break out the 24x36 inch softbox, but used it at almost 90 degrees to camera right to give him a very dramatic effect.

Alex liked some work that I had done with a grid spot from the back hitting a gold reflector in front. This is a very cool effect because there is no light in front of the subject, and it is so soft and warm.

Adding a second light, finally, from the back as well, creates a really interesting effect too.

Check out Alex Prezzano's work here: http://www.myspace.com/alexanderprezzano

Understanding Our Influences

I want to state right up front that I am most definitely not an expert in painting or art history, but I have been giving quite a lot of thought lately to how some of the great portrait painters of the past had understood the basic elements of portraiture that we all need to keep learning and practicing: light, color and composition. The first two, being interrelated and the foundation of any good representational art form, are applicable to both color and B&W photography. The range of black to white tones in B&W are simply colors in a more narrow range. Composition encompasses not only the framing, the position and pose of the subjects, the background and other secondary elements, but probably most importantly it the device through which the story of the work is told.

I had the pleasure recently of visiting the new 'Art of the Americas' wing at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. It happens to be almost in my back yard, but if you have the chance to visit Boston, it's a great museum and the new wing is pretty spectacular. The work of John Singer Sargent, which I had seen many times before, made an even bigger impression on me this time than it had in the past. It may have been because of the MFA's new presentation, but I think it probably had more to do with the thinking I have been doing about those three elements and how they apply to photographic portraiture.

As photographers, we tend to get a little provincial about what we do and how we do it, rather than looking back at how some of those who came before us did things. I think this applies to how and if we think of the great photographers of the past as well. Clearly, many of us are inspired by the greats: Ansel Adams, Karsh, Bresson, ... the list is long. But I need to constantly remind myself to not re-invent the wheel and to let those influences work their magic. I know that some people think that relying on such influences cause us to create work that is not original. Everyone begins doing what they do without already having the skills that come with education, practice and experience, but no one begins creating without having been influenced by those who came before them. Sometimes we can fail to use those influences for the good of our work though, relying on what we think is acceptable at the current time, in terms of technique and artistic sensibility. Think about the work that we might do to differing degrees that may be technically perfect, but while being esthetically current and accepted, is very uninteresting. I see photographic work all the time, as I'm sure you do, that is myopically photographic in style, where it is apparent that the artist thinks only in terms of "photographs" and not allowing any other ambient forces to enter in.

So back to Singer Sargent... The large group portrait called "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" is owned by the MFA, and is probably one of his most popular. It is really quite spectacular in person, being 87 3/8 by 87 5/8 inches. More impressive though is the artist's use of light, coming from a large, muted and soft source, his use of equally muted pastels, and presenting the viewer with an incredibly compelling composition. The four  subjects are placed in a triangular formation, which is pleasing at an unconscious level, and while their postures and lack of movement don't necessarily telegraph any particular story, the viewer is wondering what may be going on in that foreground, as well as deep in the dark recesses of the room beyond.


Another Sargent painting at the MFA that doesn't get mentioned much, which may have to do with the fact that it is a seemingly simple, posed portrait, rather than the environmental group portrait that is "The Daughters...". Many of these paintings do not look like much on a computer monitor, and the painting called "Mrs. Charles E. Inches (nee Louise Pomeroy)" is no exception. In person, the color and light that is cast onto the subject and into the room is truly surreal. Maybe I am just blown away by the realism of the work, although I am certainly a lover of the abstract. It fascinates me though in terms of how aware Sargent was of not simply throwing light onto a subject, but rather how he seems to have carefully crafted light that both sculpted and illuminated Mrs. Inches' face in such a way that the viewer can imagine this person and wonder about who she might have been.

One more, and I promise this is my last example, is "Lady Agnew of Lochnaw", which is owned by and currently at the National Gallery of Scotland. My recommendation is to just look at this picture. The beautiful light, the incredible colors, and the casual pose and overall composition, to say nothing of the technique...nearly perfect.

So how does this all apply to photography? I think we can get caught up in camera and lighting gear, which can be a fun, albeit very expensive preoccupation. We can also get pretty wrapped up in the frenzy of people, places and things that often accompany a photo shoot. I constantly have to tell myself to SLOW DOWN. It's not funny really. I need constant assurance that my subject is not getting impatient with me. When I can do this, I can think about my ultimate goal, which is a picture that might please me. In my work, there is good and bad, but there is also a sort of intangible quality of whether it works or does not work. There's no gray area for me on that topic. The photo must “work”. That's what I am after. So just because the light is positioned at a "correct" location, the photo is perfectly exposed, and the composition is by the book, this is all meaningless. We are not "taking" a picture, we are making one, or creating a painting with digital tools in place of paints and brushes. There are rules, but there are no rules. There's good and bad, but there's also art.

In an Instant

I haven't had a chance to blog is quite a while, mostly because I have been busy preparing for an exhibition that painter Bill Tyers and I are presenting at Western Avenue Studios, in Lowell, Massachusetts. We hung the show last week, opening the doors on the show last Wednesday, October 27th, 2010, so I thought I would share a couple of installation shots. We are all very happy with the show and hope that you call all make the reception, Friday evening, November 5th, from 6 to 9 PM. Please scroll down for the details. I hope to see you!

In an Instant - Adrien Bisson and Bill Tyers

In an Instant
Photography by Adrien Bisson and Paintings by Bill Tyers
October 27th - November 21st
Artists Reception: Friday, November 5th, 6-9pm

The Loading Dock Gallery
122 Western Avenue
Lowell, Massachusetts 01851

Click here for directions and a map to the gallery.

The Self-Portrait (or How to Deal With a Problem Subject)

I was speaking with the amazing Anya Downing of Engage Marketing Design (http://engagemarketingdesign.com/) last week and we were looking over my website. Among other things, she wondered about my portrait on my Info page, commenting that it was not my usual style. Well, I told her, my son took it. Considering the subject with whom he had to work, it's a great photo, as are others from the shoot. But she was right, the photo is his style, and although he is not (yet) a studio shooter, he creates exceptional photos in his own style.

I began thinking about whether I wanted to address this self-portrait issue. I do tend to internalize most anything that is said to me and about me from someone whose opinion I value, so off I went.

Self-portraits, as most anyone will tell you, can be difficult. I find my self-portrait subject to be generally uncooperative, and I have some difficulty having him not "pose". I've tried different things...

Western Avenue Studios, Lowell, Massachusetts - 2007

Westford, Massachusetts - 2007

After using this shot (above) for a while, I did a semi-environmental portrait, in my living room (right). But after a while, my son informed me that this was not up to my usual standards. I am paraphrasing ;-)

Then there was the shot below that I created for a group art show in Lowell. I think I would call this a self-portraits [sic].

Western Avenue Studios, Lowell, Massachusetts - 2009

Or there is always the action shot...

Western Avenue Studios, Lowell, Massachusetts - 2010

So yesterday, I needed to do a shot of my studio for another purpose, and I decided to put myself into the scene...

Western Avenue Studios, Lowell, Massachusetts - 2010
Whatever.

Ok. So what would I do for some other middle-aged guy who wears jeans and has no delusions about looking anything like George Clooney... Simple. I'd go with dramatic lighting, black background, no props, no chair, little to no retouch.