3 Easy Tips on What to Wear for your Headshots and Promotional Portraits

We get dressed every day, and get one of the most common questions I get from portrait clients is “what should I wear?” Male or female, age-independent. I get it, the mere thought of being photographed makes us as nervous as going in for a root canal. Since my focus is on making people comfortable and happy in front of my camera, I’ve broken the clothing question into 3 easy tips.

1 – Solid color clothing — no polka dots, no wild prints, and no distracting stripes. Clothing of this type can have a tendency to distract the viewer from the most important subject in your photos, you. And, it often makes you look wider in photos, because all the slimming subtleties of light are lost in the pattern. Pin-stripes are ok. Anything crazier than pin-stripes is a no no.

2 – Pastel colors are typically not flattering in a professional headshot. Neither is white or black, (you’ll end up being a floating head as the photo gets small, like say in your Facebook profile) but more importantly, you should avoid anything that clashes with your skin tone. I like well-saturated colors that compliment your eyes and skin tone. Think royal blue, forest green, magenta.

3 – Bling! Adding some sparkle with jewelry is great as long as it compliments you rather than distracting. Dangly earrings and simple necklace are great.

Lastly, you don’t have to listen to me. If you feel you look really good in something, even if it doesn’t abide by these “rules”, bring it to your session anyway. Worst case is we shoot a couple of photos you don’t love amongst all the ones you do.