We’ve all seen it: a headshot in front of a brick wall.
If you have one of those, please stop reading now. It’s not going to make you feel good. But you have my sympathy, don’t think that I criticize you. It’s not your fault.
Brick walls are the sign of defeat. Bricks are where bad graphic design meets surrendering.
Remember when I said that the headshot is not about putting a face behind the name but instead it is about showing your personality?
When I look at my cat I see truckloads of personality. If she looks right at me, as she often does, a photo of that look would mesmerize anybody.
If a cat can do that then I sure that a person has even more potential.
When you have a great portrait then you don’t need anything else. Somebody explain to me how having a mess of vertical and horizontal lines intersecting your head is an improvement. It is not. It’s exactly the opposite.
A brick wall is added when the subject is uninteresting and we need to distract the viewer from the fact that there is nothing happening in the face.
Well, if that is the case, why do we have the photo in the first place? Because somebody thought that the purpose was to show the face behind the name, which brings us back to the fundamental error that I exposed in tip #1. Put a face behind the name and you have another ID card. Uninteresting, unremarkable, unnoticeable.
Show your personality and you stand out, you create connections.
A solid background, either white or a nice grey, helps to highlight your face and keeping the attention where it should be: on you.