What Should I Wear For My Headshot?

What should I wear for my headshot? That's probably the most asked question when someone makes an appointment to be photographed. The answer is of course, it depends. If you are a business person you might want to consider a dark jacket with a shirt or blouse that is muted in color. If you're an actor or model you might want to wear a dark long sleeve t-shirt.

From the photographers point of view, anything that takes away from the face weakens your presence in the photograph. This means no wild patterns, no loud colors and little to none when it comes to jewelry. When I think about photographs of the people I know and love my one question for them is; "what are you going to say about this photo 25 years from now?" Modern, cool styles today could look outdated and silly in a year, let alone 25 years from now. Classic will always last. There may be thinner or thicker ties, there may be larger or smaller lapels, but in general you will probably look back and think that John Craig took a pretty good picture of me.

When you come to me for a photography, let me help. The last thing I want you to do in the future is say "WHAT WAS I THINKING?"

If you are in the market for a headshot or portrait, please do not hesitate to contact me and arrange for a sitting at your earliest convenience

So, It’s a Portrait; what else can you tell me?

“A person is a collage of people warring to become a portrait.” 
Jenim Dibie

Why do people have their portraits taken? There are hundreds, if not thousand of reasons to permanently record a person in a particular moment in time. High school graduations, weddings, birthdays, history, for love - or remembrance.

Although every face is unique, when taking a portrait of a tightly cropped headshot, or a full length glamor shot the basics of portrait photography are always the same. So what is behind a photographers thinking when someone comes in to have their portrait done?

Often there are commercial reasons. A portrait and/or wedding studio charges money for their specialization in professional portraits. Sometimes a photographer finds a beautiful face, or a face rich in character that they need to capture. Most often these images do not reveal anything new about the person, instead they only reinforce our already preconceived assumptions. 

Yousuf Karsh

Yousuf Karsh

One of the best examples of this is the Yousuf Karsh (b.1908 - d. 2002)“Bulldog” photograph of Winston Churchill. Karsh, one of the masters of 20th Century photography, asked Churchill to remove the cigar from his mouth. After refusing the request several times, Karsh walked up to Churchill and removed it for him. Infuriated by this action, Churchill scowled at the camera as Karsh took the picture. 

Although most of the people in the world didn’t personally know Churchill, most had the impression that he was tough, no-nonsense, impatient, grumpy and most of all, serious. After all, he was the guy that stood up to fascism at a time England and the world needed it most.

What Did The Churchill Portrait Tell Us?

But what does the picture tell us beyond that serious facade? Does it tell us how many years he spent in government, or that he was an artist that painted for almost his entire life? Does it tell us if he was married (he was), or how many children he had (4). Did he ride bikes, play chess, fish, or do any other millions of things that he or any other human may do during their lifetime. From this photo, we can’t tell, yet we know there is far more to him than this photograph tells us. 

Do Portraits Fall Short In Capturing the “Essence” of a Person?

And that’s where portraits in any medium fall short in capturing “the essence” of a person. The combination of expression, uniform, background, framing, lighting and medium can all point toward a realness, but not the complete realness. A persona can be captured in 1/60th of a second, but not the person. Essence may only be the viewers projection of the known qualities when successfully captured in the photograph.

The “Bulldog” persona that developed during war was only a small part of Churchill the person. The collage of Churchill was much more complicated, as it is with all of us.

The Chimney Sweeps

The Project

The uniform is often a signifier of how we want people to perceive us. What we wear is often just a public persona of a greater personality. In my new ongoing series I use portraiture to connect the persona with the person. 

In this series the term “uniform”is explored as a contronym. I photograph my subjects in their uniform, thereby identifying themselves as an individual of an organization or cultural group. The next step is to ask them to list who they are. The list deconstructs the uniform narrative and exposes the common bonds between us, blurring the lines between our public personas and revealing the uniformity of the human experience. 

My First Subjects

My first subjects in the project were a two men that came to my house to clean my chimney. Ricardo and Cristhian Hernandez were unlike the chimney sweeps in the movie Mary Poppins, they were not dressed in all black or top hats nor did they do any singing and dancing on our roof, Their uniforms were hoodies and jeans, no different than the way most of us hang out and many of us do our work. 

The Clues

Without the obvious dress clues, how do we determine what they are. The wire brushes each of the men hold tell us they are scrubbing something, something big. These brushes are used in the chimney to loosen the dirt and soot. In this case it’s not the dress or the tools the men use that identify what they do, instead it’s the hands that give it away. Some of the soot that is loosen and cleaned out of the chimney ends up in the cracks and lines of their hands revealing the dirty work and hard job they do.

Who Are They?

But these images are only telling us the what, not who. Although Ricardo did not reveal anything else about himself, he seemed friendly and cooperative to sit for my art project. Cristhian divulges a bit more about himself, he writes:

Cristhian Hernandez
Son
Brother
Likes Soccer
Cleans Chimenys
Cleans Dryer Vents

The Reward

The tools and the soot may be signifiers of what they do, but not who they are. Instead of being “the chimney guys”, I got a chance to meet them and find out a little more about them.

I feel rewarded for my effort.