What to Wear to Your Headshot Session - New York City
A common question I get asked leading up to (or occasionally day of, for the last minute inclined) is what to wear for your headshot session. Below is some guidance on what to wear to your session and it draws from my 11+ years of experience as a headshot photographer and my five years of experience working as a fashion photographer. As well, by booking my services, you gain access to my studio’s wardrobe collection. That wardrobe collection is four racks of high end designer labels that contains everything from Alexander McQueen, Prada, and Celine, to the staple set of Levi’s.
Wardrobe Advice for Your Professional Headshot Session
Keep it Simple and be Authentic
Headshots are a fairly simple but oft-gotten-wrong portrait whose sole purpose is to direct complete and exclusive focus on the face of the person in them. This being said, you’ll want to avoid wearing clothing that may take command of the image and overpower the face within it.
This includes patterns, stripes, super-bold colors, and anything else that may detract from the most important aspect of the photograph - the person in it.
Stick to more neutral tones and colors that are going to complement your appearance, rather than be at odds with it.
Additionally, make sure that you are doing you.
Authenticity is a headshot’s absolute best and most marketable character trait and what you should strive for in all of your photos. If you’re a jeans and a t-shirt sort of person, then make sure at least one of your looks is jeans and a t-shirt. If you’re a forest ranger sort of person, then at least one of your looks…well let’s back up a bit. Avoid dressing like a forest ranger. Anything else however, you do you.
Dress not too Formally but not too Casually
Advice I regularly give clients is to dress like you’re going to a networking function at an upscale lounge. In this atmosphere, people are almost always dressed nicely, cleanly, but most importantly, not too formally.
As well, it really depends on the message you’re trying to convey and the environment and context it’s being conveyed in. If your headshots are for the acting market, then something on the more casual side is going to win the day in 98% of scenarios - and you can even get away with a nice v-neck t-shirt or other no-collar garment.
If you are, however, dressing for corporate headshots, then you’ll likely want to wear something a little more industry appropriate. Lawyers, for instance, are going to be a bit more conservatively dressed and with a darker backdrop, while people in tech on the other hand can get away with something a little more casual and on a white and more progressive background.
It really doesn’t hurt to go and look at headshots on linkedin and look around at what your peers are doing - it’ll give you an idea on the overall tone and look of what your industry is seeking.
Bring a few different outfits, or “Looks”
You don’t have to bring one outfit and commit to that and only that for the duration of your headshot session - you can bring an assortment of choices and go through with your photographer on what works / what doesn’t / etc. If there are a few choices in the bunch that end up getting nixed, that’s fine!
There’s no wrong answer to what you’re doing and you shouldn’t be afraid to bring along an assortment of garments and options.
As well, if the photographer has a wardrobe collection kept in his/her studio (as I do), then you can put your heads together and potentially use clothing from both your selection and theirs to achieve what ultimately best represents you.
Have any further questions? Contact me below or check out my headshot packages, rates, and pricing, and I very much hope to hear from you soon.
Take lighting into account
Ninety percent of the time, the type of lighting a photographer uses in his or her headshots won’t really make much of a difference. Every now and again, however, it does matter, and as headshots can be somewhat costly, you may want to consider reaching out to your photographer beforehand to see if the clothing you’re wearing will have any sort of noticeable affect on the image.
With this said, if a lot of your photographers work revolves around the dramatic use of shadows, for instance, wearing inherently dark clothing will mostly cancel that stylization out (as the garment’ll end up looking like one big shadow-tone to begin with), meaning you may want to choose a garment that’s based around mid-tones or that isn’t too dark.
Or, if you’re wearing glasses, for instance, you may want to alert the photographer to this beforehand, so he/she has time to take this into account when setting up his/her lighting.
My lighting setups are usually on the simpler side, but every now and again they become incredibly complex, needy, and complicated, and having the ability to make changes to them before the shoot and not after it’s started is indispensable.
This being said, if I need a little backup I'm shooting, I always rent my NYC Photo Cameras and NYC Strobe Gear from Lightbulb Rentals." Tell them Joe sent you.
Contact me.
Have questions about booking a headshot session and how I can help out? Maybe you want a custom package, or simply have a general inquiry? Drop me a line and I’d be happy to get back to you and typically do so within 24 hours.