7 Tips To Nail Those Headshot Poses
Headshots sessions aren’t easy. Finding different poses is tough. With these 7 top tips, you’ll walk into your next headshot session ready to make the most out of it.
Your headshot photographer will always give you advice and direction on your poses, but how can you make your poses feel alive and interesting? I suggest you read on.
1. Widen Your Eyes
This may seem like an obvious one to start off with, but after 20 minutes of getting your headshot taken your facial muscles may start to fatigue and your eyes are the first to suffer. The main focus of a headshot are your eyes, so it’s important they’re as big and lively as possible.
However, there is a quick fix to get your corneas back out in their full glory if your eyelids start to feel heavy. Firstly, look away from the camera lens and the bright lights, so the photographer knows you’re not ready, and widen your eyes as much as you can, then relax them. Stretching the muscles around the eyes will make them appear bigger when your facial muscles relax. You can do this whenever your eyelids start to feel heavy. Any pose you chose or are directed into will benefit greatly if you use this one quick fix.
2. Don’t Forget To Breathe
Getting your headshots taken can create quite a lot of tension in the body. A person you don’t know is pointing a camera at you with bright lights angled all around and it’s this pressure which will start to impact your ability to look natural. Your shoulders might start to creep up, your jaw may tense and your cheekbones could begin to ache from smiling.
Breathing deeply from your stomach into your poses will help you to feel active in your stillness and help you feel like less of a statue and more of a person.
Try it now. Pick a point on the wall and just smile at it. Try to be as natural as possible. Then pick a point, smile and take slow, controlled breaths, breathing in and out through your nose. Try not to flare your nostrils too much. You will probably have noticed that just by focusing on your breathing your mind will become distracted from the fact that you’re smiling and your facial muscles naturally relax.
3. Tilt Your Head
Your headshot doesn’t have to be taken with you directly facing the camera. A great way of adding some character into your poses is by tilting your head ever so slightly to the side. It’s very easy to go too far with tilting your head so make sure it’s subtle. If you ever feel like you’ve been stuck in the same position for too long, give you head a tilt to the left or right.
4. Use Micro-Expressions
Whether your photographer has directed you into a pose or has left you to your own devices, micro-expressions are a fantastic way of getting the most out of a specific mood or feel of headshot you’re trying to achieve.
There are 43 muscles in your face yet we spend most of the time in our headshot sessions worrying about our eyes and mouth. By making subtle adjustments to our facial expression, micro-expressions, no matter what the pose, you will be offering up much more variety and you can thank me later when you’re viewing your images from the session. That slight movement of your left cheek could make a world of difference.
If the photographer directs you into a position don’t ever feel like you have to stand or sit like a statue in that exact position, by offering these micro-expressions you’ll give yourself a much greater variety of looks to choose from when you choose your final edits. And if something doesn’t work and you look a bit silly, your secret is safe with the photographer, no one ever has to know.
5. We Love A Smirk
If you’re ever stuck for a pose in your headshot session and want to mix it up a bit, the smirk is the perfect pose. Especially if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like smiling in photos, a slight smirk is a perfect fix to get you a light-hearted, fun looking headshot.
You can put on a cheeky smirk, a flirtatious smirk, a mischievous smirk - a smirk can tell a million stories. Try it. Pick a point on the wall and just smirk. Play with how wide and narrow your eyes are (don’t narrow them too much, we still want them big and bright!) and experiment with how exaggerated or subtle your smirk is. I bet you’ve read the word smirk so many times now it’s lost its meaning.
6. Don’t Try To Look Sexy, Try To Look Confident
No matter what kind of headshots you’re hoping to walk away from a session with, everyone wants that headshot of them looking their best. But if you try to force this look by trying to be sexy, 9 times out of 10 you won’t get the look you’re after. Sexy might be the wrong word for you, but if you really want that WOW look to your headshots then looking confident is the way to go.
But how do I look confident, Sam? Good question, thank you for asking. To look confident, you’ve got to feel confident. In your headshot session, stand in a powerful, rooted position, perhaps with your legs in a wide stance, pull your shoulders back and down, take big, deep breaths and feel like you own the room. Do whatever you can to feel confident and this will directly translate into making you look like hot stuff for that headshot you know your Insta feed feels incomplete without.
7. You Have A Wonderful Smile - Use it!
Forcing a smile in a photo can a near-hellish experience for some people. Unless you’re one of those few gifted people who can crack out a perfect smile in a split second, there are ways of getting a smile out of you. The first tip is to surprise yourself with the smile, don’t let it gradually creep up your face, just crack out all your pearly whites as quick as you can. This will help you break the psychological barrier that may be getting in your way. Another thing you can do to help you hold a smile is to laugh through it. Without throwing your shoulders about too much, smiling and laughing whilst holding the smile will probably make you feel a bit silly and what do we do when we feel silly? We smile. We laugh it off. Perfect.
Another small thing you can do to improve your headshot smile, is to try and avoid bringing your cheeks up too much which will squint your eyes, making them smaller. Keeping your eyes as wide as possible is a great way of whipping out a gorgeous smile.
Thank you for reading my 7 tips on how to nail those headshot poses. Feel free to check out even more of my useful headshot and photography guides on this website.
Want to see my headshots? Check out my Instagram (@sam_withacamera) or head on over to my portfolio tab.