financial adviser headshots

Financial Advisor business headshots

Financial Advisor business headshots

Recently I was asked to create a new set of business headshots for local financial adviser Joe Wadsted – and of course was happy to oblige.

To make life easy for Joe I set up an impromptu studio at his home, using a simple plain grey background and just a couple of lights. I shot a couple of different lighting styles to give Joe a choice of “looks”. First of all a neutral look and then also a more contrasty style with more pronounced shadows.

As I usually do I got Joe to adopt a few different poses and we also shot some images with him smiling and others with a more neutral expression. Not everybody feels comfortable or looks at their best with a big grin in photographs. So I always do a mix so the client can choose the expression that they feel suits them best.

Shooting on a grey background

I’m sometimes asked why I tend to use a grey background rather than white for business headshots. There are a couple of reasons… Firstly, it works with any colour of clothing. If I use a white backdrop and the client decides to wear a white shirt, they can disappear into the background! Secondly, a grey background involves less light bouncing around which can be a problem if I’m shooting in a small office or living room. Thirdly it’s a nice neutral tone that works both in print and online. And lastly, it makes it easier to do a “cutout” if the client later decides they want their portrait on a different coloured background, or overlaid on a location photo.

Joe was happy with the grey background but I’ve included some modified versions of his photos below to show you how this works:

financial adviser headshots
The first three examples here show a “neutral” lighting style – showing the contours of the face and separating the subject from the background, without being overly contrasty.

financial adviser headshots
Here we have a more contrasty lighting style, with a triangular highlight on the cheek and a shadow next to the nose. This lighting pattern works well for men but can sometimes be a bit too harsh for female portraits.
financial adviser headshots
For online profiles a square image is often preferred. I shoot my business portraits in “landscape” orientation to make it easy to crop them to square, like this.
financial adviser headshots
In this version the grey background has been replaced with a blue gradient. While this can be done with coloured lighting in the studio, often it’s simpler to shoot on a grey background and add the colour later in Photoshop!
Finally, we have the whole background replaced by a a location photo. While I would normally advocate shooting this kind of image “live”, so as to ensure that the lighting angles and tones match, in an emergency a background can be dropped in like this.

Get in touch if you’d like some new headshots for yourself or your colleagues!

Financial Advisor business headshots

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