Perfect Business Headshot is worth $1,000

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Nineteen-year-old US tennis player Serena Williams holds her Jack Russell terrier named ‘Jackie’ after a morning practice session in 2001.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Would you pay $1,000 for a business headshot?

The Wall Street Journal published an article about the value of professionally done business headshots for people seeking a career boost. (This alternative link doesn’t have the photos included in the original article but that’s actually a good thing. The glaring irony of the original article about the value of headshots is that the headshot examples are rather plain or poorly done.)

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Hiding Photographers

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An obvious group of photographers, 09 September 2014.

And just for fun, here’s the reverse angle:

British actress Keira Knightley at the Toronto Film Festival, 09 September 2014.

 

A Toronto dentist recently told me that when he graduated from dental school in the mid-1970s, there were about 1,300 dentists in Toronto. He said that number has since increased at least 600%.

When he opened his own practice in Toronto, there was one other dental office within a one-block radius of his office. Today there are eight other dental offices within that same one-block radius and those eight dental businesses collectively employ about 18 dentists.
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Retouching Business Photos

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Most business images can benefit from retouching. The Before photo was made quickly during a factory tour using only the overhead fluorescent lights. Retouching fixed the colour and the bad lighting.

People sometimes confuse photo retouching with the generic term “airbrushing.” A person will often ask that their picture be airbrushed when they really mean they want technical errors fixed (e.g. too light, too dark, bad colour, etc.), distractions removed, the background changed, a building straightened, etc.
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Photo Retouching in Toronto

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Most pictures of house interiors require some retouching to show the property at its best.

Someone sent a business portrait of themselves and asked for it be retouched. The person wanted the brick wall background replaced with “something serious or dramatic.”

What exactly does that mean?

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What makes a photographer good?

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A portrayal of an amateur photographer at work, circa 1907. “Kodack” was spelled wrong intentionally. (George W. Spencer / US Library of Congress)

What makes a photographer good?

Getting pictures in focus? Having proper exposure? Good colour balance? Accurate flash exposure?

It’s none of those things because cameras have auto-focus, auto-exposure, auto colour balance and auto flash exposure.

Producing technically perfect photos does not make a photographer good. So what’s left?

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Hey, Martha!

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A group of men pose with a “sea serpent”, circa 1906. (US Library of Congress)

There used to be a newsroom term called a “Hey, Martha!” I’m not sure if this is still used today.

The phrase comes from an old editors’ tale, (not unlike an old wives’ tale), that said if a story or photo was so unusual, offbeat or funny, a husband reading his newspaper would look up and yell to his wife, “Hey, Martha! Come and see this!”

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Low Expectations

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Canadian goalkeeper Milan Borjan celebrates Canada’s win over Jamaica in their men’s soccer match in the final rounds of the Concacaf FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Toronto, Canada, 27 March 2022.

This is a view-from-my-office photo from a cold, rainy-snowy soccer game.

From the past two weeks:

 

• A Toronto professional photographer does family portraits for $500 according to his web site. The price includes a 45-minute session and 50 “fully retouched” pictures.

Fifty images in 45 minutes? Fully retouched? Ten dollars per photo?

At that price, who should have low expectations, the customer or the photographer?

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