Notes on headshot shoot
- Jason Parker
- Mar 13
- 2 min read
Hey everyone, yesterday I did a headshot shoot for St. Paul UMC, a church that I contract with in Atlanta. Here are a few notes on what I used and how I set it up. This is a smaller scale version of what I've been working on with photo students in the studio: two lights - key and hair, two small light stands (instead of beefier, heavier c-stands. I have to carry these around!), my Lumix camera with a 70-200 f/4 lens at 85mm: set to 1/60 shutter speed, f4, ISO100.
White balance set to Daylight (don't use Auto if you want all your pictures to have the same color cast, natural light changes fast!). Plus all the plugs, cables, extension cord (carry one!), etc.
Subjects are about six feet from the camera, three feet from the key and hair lights, with their right shoulders turned toward me letting me shoot a short light headshot. "Short light" means we can see more of the shadow side of the face than the lit side. I might have directed the last one better, she's a little more face-on than I wanted.
Before pressing the shutter, I told each subject to close their eyes and take a breath, then open and look at the camera. I framed with their eyes on my top horizontal rule of thirds grid line so they all line up (this can be turned on in your camera menu). Each took about six frames to get one we really like. I tethered to my laptop so they could see too. People like to look at themselves!
I did not tape things down or sandbag anything but that's best practice and I advise it. I should have dialed down the power on my background light (the regular camera flash, Godox V1, that I have on a stand behind my subjects) even more. It was too "hot" (meaning bright) and took me some extra time in Photoshop to make acceptable.
In addition to the too hot backlight work, the photos all got a light retouch. They turned out well enough and my clients are happy, which is what counts. This small job that I executed good, fast, and cheap also netted me an upcoming wedding 😎
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