portraits

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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Reminiscing (Part Eight)

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(My last post reminiscing about old pictures.)

One of the many good things about working for a newspaper was the variety of assignments. Each day brought different photography work and each day you met new people.

A few examples:

• I shot an Aerosmith concert on January 6, 1990. That was followed by two hours of standing in January winter weather photographing a late-night fire at the Polish consulate in Toronto.

• On June 24, 1996, I photographed a story about a group of homeless people. My next assignment was at one of Toronto’s most expensive hotels where an International Olympic Committee executive was being feted.

• I photographed Stephen Hawking at the University of Toronto on April 27, 1998. After this, I shot a rock concert by the Deftones.

• My assignments on October 29, 1999, were to photograph the Prime Minister of Hungary and then photograph a real witch (no joke) for a Halloween story.
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Reminiscing (Part Seven)

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Irish actor Pierce Brosnan.

There are a few reasons why a photographer will shoot or crop a portrait very tightly:

1) Cut off distractions in the foreground or background. Sometimes the subject themselves might be wearing a distraction like text or logos on clothing, a shirt with an ugly colour or loud pattern, etc.

2) Dramatic effect. A tightly composed portrait emphasizes the person’s eyes and facial expression. An otherwise routine portrait can be made more attention-getting by cropping tightly.

3) Graphic effect. A tightly composed portrait can sometimes produce interesting lines or shape.
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Reminiscing (Part Six)

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Yet another post reminiscing about some old photos.

The pictures below were shot during various press conferences which were also recorded on video. But the moments captured in these pictures are not noticeable in the videos.

The power of photography is that it can capture and isolate one moment forever. Video flashes by at 30 frames per second and your brain barely notices any of those frames. Your brain doesn’t actually see video or motion but rather it sees in a series of still images and remembers only key frames.

 

This press conference had name tags placed in the seats. While waiting for people to take their seats, US actor Tommy Lee Jones briefly held up his name tag.

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