Headshot Posing Essentials: 6 Tips on How to Pose in Your Corporate Headshots
There’s something about standing in front of a camera that makes us get lost in our own heads. It heightens all of our insecurities and makes us overthink the simplest of things. What should I do with my hands? How should I stand? What is the best pose? We’d otherwise never give thought to these choices, but when you introduce a camera, we suddenly need guidance on the most basic things!
Confidence Is Key
As a NYC corporate headshot photographer, there are a number of posing tips for headshots that I like to share when starting a new headshot session. A great corporate headshot begins with having confidence in your pose, and these tips on how to pose for your headshots will help you get the most out of your session.
How To Pose For Your Headshot - The Essentials
Know Your Good Side
Whether conscious or not, you probably have a preferred angle for photographs. Take a look at how you’ve previously posed in group photos and selfies, and you might find that you tend to favor one side. Your body will feel most natural when angled that way for your headshots, and the photos will feel more like the “you” that you’re used to seeing.
Lead Slightly With One Shoulder
A photo taken straight on can feel a bit more like a mugshot than a headshot. A subtle angle makes things feel more like a professional business portrait and offers a slimmer silhouette.
Incorporate Your Hands
Leaving your hands at your sides can lead to slumped shoulders and an overall awkward feeling, so put them to work!
Hands in pockets. When wardrobe allows, pockets are a natural home for our hands. This corporate headshot pose will give a slight bend to your elbow and create some flattering separation between your arm and your torso. This typically looks best with the hand that is closest to camera; in this case, you can leave your back hand at your side.
Hand on hip. Place your hand on the hip that’s closest to the camera, leaving your back hand at your side. A slight dip in that same shoulder can look nice as well. While few poses carry any gender implications, this one is typically favored by women.
Arms crossed, aka “the power pose”. To avoid things feeling overly serious, you can soften this pose up with a smile. Keep your arms and hands relaxed to avoid the pose feeling tense.
Clasped hands. Be sure to keep your arms loose and let them fall naturally. If you bring the clasp in too tight, your arms will create a closed-off feeling to your headshot pose, which is the opposite of what we want to project for your headshot.
Fiddle with your wardrobe. For a more candid feel, photos taken during an action like adjusting the cuff of a sleeve or buttoning a blazer can give a very organic appearance to your headshot, almost as if it was a behind the scenes shot or an outtake.
Use The Environment
If you’re taking the photos in your offices or outdoors, the environment might give you some very natural posing ideas for your corporate headshots. Leaning against a doorway / wall or resting an arm on a desk or table can make things feel less posed and more organic.
Smile With Your Eyes
The eyes are the first part of your headshot that we gravitate to, and if the eyes feel insincere, the headshot will feel insincere. Smiling authentically is very difficult to do on demand (see our tips on how to smile for your headshot). Your photographer should have some tricks for getting a sincere smile out of you. But it’s still a good idea to practice your smile and make sure that it reaches your eyes.
Chin Forward
When we smile, and especially when we laugh, we have a tendency to pull our head in towards our neck. Placing it more forward helps to keep the skin tight around the jawline, which provides great definition and is much more flattering.
Takeaways
With all of these tips on how to pose for headshots, it’s important to remember not to become a statue. The longer you try to hold a pose, the more stiff it will become, and that stiffness will make its way into your expression. Keep things moving, shift your hands around, change the weight between your feet, and that will help to prevent things from getting stale.
Above all, the best pose for a corporate headshot is the one that feels most natural to you. Don’t force anything that doesn’t feel like “you” — the best results will come from letting your body do what feels right, along with some helpful notes from your photographer. Take the time you need to settle in, review your photos with your photographer as you go, and you’ll come away with a headshot that both flatters you and accurately represents you to your audience.
If your posing could use some work, or if you’d just like to hear some of the dad jokes that I use to get some natural smiles, get in touch and we’ll get those NYC corporate headshots off your to-do list.
