How to Prepare for Your Portrait Session

A portrait session gives us a lot more room to play than a traditional headshot.

That's the fun part. It's also why a little preparation goes a long way.

With a headshot, we're generally working toward a fairly straightforward goal: a polished photo of you that can be used professionally. Portraits can be almost anything. Casual. Dramatic. Editorial. Personal. Professional. Environmental. A little weird, if that's your thing. So before your session, spend some time thinking about what you actually want.

Start by figuring out what you like

You don't need to arrive with a fully developed creative brief, but please give us something to work with. Look through photos online. Scroll Pinterest or Instagram. Pay attention to portraits that make you stop. Then save them. We're not trying to copy another photographer's exactly. Reference photos simply help us understand what you're responding to. Maybe it's the pose. Maybe it's the lighting. Maybe it's the background, expression, wardrobe or overall mood. You don't even have to know why you like it. Show it to us and we can usually figure that part out together.

Think about what you want the photos to say

This matters more with portraits than it does with headshots.

What are these photos for? Maybe you're updating your personal brand. Maybe you're an artist who wants something more creative. Maybe you need photos for a website. Maybe you're celebrating a milestone. Or maybe you just want really good pictures of yourself. All perfectly valid reasons. But knowing the purpose helps us make decisions about everything else.

Plan your wardrobe around the idea

For a portrait session, your clothes aren't just something you happen to be wearing. They're part of the photograph.

Think about how the colors, textures and style fit with the look you're trying to create.

And just like with headshots, be careful about trying to hide your body underneath oversized or bulky clothing. It often has the opposite effect in photographs and can make you appear larger. Clothing with some shape generally photographs better.

If your session allows for multiple looks, bring options. We can help you decide what works best with each setup. And don't forget the whole outfit. Portraits may include much more of your body than a headshot, so shoes, pants, jewelry and accessories suddenly matter.

Think beyond

your clothes

Props can be great when they actually tell us something about you.

That doesn't mean everyone needs to show up carrying an object.

But if you're a musician, an instrument might make sense. If you're an artist, maybe we photograph you in your workspace. If there's something connected to your profession, personality or the reason we're taking the portraits, tell us about it.

The key is that it should have a reason to be there.

Don't practice poses, but do bring ideas

Just like with headshots, you don't need to stand in front of the mirror rehearsing.

We'll pose you. But there's a difference between knowing how to pose and knowing what kinds of photos you like. If every inspiration photo you send us has someone sitting casually on the floor, that's useful. If you love dramatic side profiles, tell us. If you hate photos where people are looking directly into the camera, that's useful, too.

The more we understand your taste, the less likely we are to spend half the session creating photographs you were never going to want.

Tell us what you're self-conscious about

This isn't the time to suffer silently. If you don't like a particular angle, tell us. If there's a part of your body you're uncomfortable emphasizing, tell us. If there's something you particularly love and do want emphasized, tell us that too. None of this is unusual information for a photographer to hear. It helps us photograph you better.

Talk to us about editing

People have wildly different opinions about retouching. Some people want very little. Others are much more comfortable with a polished, highly edited portrait. Our default isn't to start changing the way you look. We'll handle the things photographs normally need, including lighting, color, cropping and background adjustments. But if you want additional retouching, let us know. Got a pimple that wasn't there three days ago? We can remove it. Want more extensive skin retouching? Ask. Have something else bothering you? Tell us. We'd rather have that conversation than guess how much editing you want.

Give yourself enough time

Portrait sessions work best when we're not watching the clock every 30 seconds.

Give yourself enough time before the session to get dressed, do your hair and makeup, gather everything you want to bring and arrive without rushing. And if you're changing clothes during the session, remember that takes time too. The goal isn't to cram as many outfits and poses as possible into your session. It's to get photographs you actually want to use.

And then let us experiment

Planning matters. But some of the best photographs happen after we've gotten the shot we planned and someone says, "Okay, let's try something."

That's one of the biggest differences between a headshot session and a portrait session. A headshot has a job to do. A portrait can have a little more personality. Come in with ideas. Show us what you like. Tell us what you don't. Give us a sense of where you want to go. Then leave us a little room to play.