When getting your professional headshot taken, it’s important to be thoughtful about what you wear. Our clothes affect the way we look, feel, and photograph. Nothing feels worse than getting your pictures back and not feeling your best. So to best be prepared, we have put together a list of tips to consider when getting dressed for your professional headshots.
1. Keep your jewelry and accessories simple.
When accessorizing for a professional headshot, it can be easy to overdo it. Try and follow the “less is more” method. Flashy jewelry can affect the photo poorly, and distract from your headshot. When someone looks at your headshot, you want them to look at your face, not your neck.
2. Avoid loud patterns.
Again, less is more. Patterns can distract from the subject of the headshot. Sometimes, certain viewers don’t like patterns as they can hurt their eyes or be hard to focus on.
3. Choose a neutral color.
Choosing a neutral color for your headshot is the safest way to ensure a classy and flattering professional headshot. However, you want to make sure you wear a color you feel fantastic in. If you know you don’t like yourself in a particular color, don’t wear it. And if you have a work shirt that you think makes you look your best, but it’s not a neutral color, wear it anyways!
However, if you have the option, choose neutral colors.
4. Dress for your industry.
If you’re wondering if your outfit is too fancy, or too casual, start by looking at what other coworkers have worn for their headshots. You can also look up other companies in your industry or other colleagues within your industry and see how they dressed for their headshots.
As a rule of thumb, it’s always better to over-dress rather than under-dress.
5. Be cautious when wearing glasses.
If you wear glasses, you have most likely had your picture taken in them before and gotten a picture back where you can’t see your eyes because of a light reflection in your glasses. Glasses tend to reflect any light, natural or studio, and can make it tricky to get a natural-looking headshot.
Of course, if you wear your glasses every day and want to make sure your headshot represents how you look at work, you should wear them. But if you don’t typically wear glasses, avoid them in your headshot as well to prevent any funny-looking reflections in your pictures.
6. Make sure your clothes are ironed out.
Wrinkles do show in pictures, and unless you specifically ask your photographer to edit them out, you may receive photos back with wrinkles in your clothes. It’s better to be safe than sorry, so for the best odds, iron out your shirt before your shoot.
7. Steer clear of clothes with logos.
Unless the company you work for specifically asked you to wear a company shirt with their logo on it, avoid any tops with large logos and graphics across the front. Try to go for something plain to avoid any distractions in the shot.
