A business portrait is essential for any professional, executive or entrepreneur. Business headshots can be used for media handouts, press releases, public relations, social media, corporate publications, company web site, business cards, vCards, etc.
A portrait helps build a personal connection. There’s a reason why every politician uses a business portrait in their campaign, on their web site and in brochures. It works.
If a politician is caught in a scandal, a good portrait can help mend a lot of credibility problems. Why? Because we trust an honest face, a smiling face. For better or worse, we judge a book by its cover.
It’s important to have both a business portrait, (i.e., a head-and-shoulders look), as well as an environmental portrait. This latter type of picture usually shows the person doing something rather than just posing in front of a backdrop. This style of portrait tries to add context to the person by showing something of that person’s work environment.
A business portrait tries to build trust by conveying a sense of friendliness and honesty. The purpose of an environmental portrait is to show competency and experience.
Newspapers and magazines usually want a business portrait for a basic news story. But for any type of feature story, an environmental portrait is the better choice. An environmental portrait will create more interest, provide more information to readers and give more layout options to the publication’s editor.
Environmental portraits always run larger than business portraits simply because they must. An environmental portrait must run larger so that the reader can see and understand the activity being shown.
Talk to your corporate photographer about creating environmental portraits for you.
