Professional portraits for personal and business websites
If you run your own business then its goes without saying that you need a website these days, and a standard element of any business website should be an About us or Profile page on the owners, or key employees. Having a high-quality photo, typically a headshot, of the person or people providing the service or running the business puts a face to the company and helps build trust with your potential clients. They show that you take your business seriously and are prepared to invest in promoting your business in a professional manner.
Kibri has just started working for my friend Tim, who is a podiatrist. He is setting up a clinic in north London covering the Hackney & Walthamstow area. I did a photo shoot back in July for his new website, where I went to the health clinic and took a selection of business portraits and photographs of Tim carrying out his job. This was before Kibri started working for him, so they needed some additional profile portraits taken. She came down to my south London studio where we took these additional images. We completed the website business portraits fairly quickly and had a little bit of time left to try some other studio portrait set ups. It was too good an opportunity to miss having someone as photogenic as Kibri is in front of the camera. Taking some more casual portraits also means the person has an additional image that they can use on other websites such as Facebook or LinkedIN.
Kibri was a great model, she didn’t blink, and could hold a pose and it’s amazing the difference a white scrub coat can make. Compare the first two business portraits with the rest, we go from a smart health professional to fashion model in the blink of an eye. I used my big Westcott 50″ soft box with a single SB900 flash. Its a gorgeous light on its own, or used in with a reflector or with a hair/ cross light from behind.
One final thing about a good profile page is it also provides a potential opportunity for SEO, because if each business portrait also has a short biography of the person attached to it, then the keywords and phrases about your business can be inserted into the biography, in Kibri’s case such as “podiatrist” or “foot care”. This will help your website rank higher in search engine results.
