Linkedin profile pictures: portrait photography for Social Media
You can call them head shots, or close-ups, or profile pictures . It doesn’t matter what you call them, and it doesn’t matter if you intend to publish these portrait photos on Linkedin, Twitter or other social media. The only thing that does matter is that your employees -and your company- create a professional presence for the outside world. If they can’t be found on Linkedin, they simply don’t exist. Social media are here to stay, and a good profile picture is just as important as a good resume.
And a close-up doesn’t have to be a boring or anonymous passport photo, as portrait photographer Jeroen Bouman proves in this portfolio, shot for the Linkedin company page en website of Wladimiroff Lawyers. The choice for black & white combined with powerful lighting creates a film noir effect that breathes style and atmosphere.
“Portrait photography for social media may not seem like a highly creative challenge for a photographer, but I can assure you that a good head shot is often much, much more difficult than an environmental portrait. The focus is solely on the face, so you have to able to extract and capture expression. And a profile picture has to have punch, as the person portrayed may not get a second chance to create that first impression, especially not on social media like Linkedin or Twitter. That’s also why I prefer to make the selection of the best image together with the portrayed -on the spot- so I can be sure that he or she is happy with the final result.”
When new personnel is hired and needs to be photographed, it’s important that the new portraits are identical to the ones previously made. Photographer Jeroen Bouman solves this by making an elaborate sketch and noting down distances, camera settings and lighting variables. The photos in this portfolio have been shot in four different sittings and match nearly perfectly, as you can see for yourself.
“Would you be surprised if I told you that this series was not shot in the studio but at Wladimiroffs office? I bring in all necessary equipment, from lights and backdrops in any desired colour to a posing stool. And during the photo shoot, I apply the persons name to the image file name, i.e. ‘LastName-FirstName.jpg‘. It prevents mistaken identity and saves you from manually renaming an entire batch of close-ups.”
