Head Shots.. need help

[Avv604]

July 28th I am going to do some family shots and a couple of headshots for a friend of mine. She use to be a model and now she and her son, 17 or so, are wanting headshots.

I have never done headshots before. We have a spot to shoot but I am not sure what to look for in the shot.

Light Gear: 580EX Speedlight, 420EX speedlight

Suggestions?
They know this is not my regular type of picture but would like me to try.

[Saralonde]

So many things that can be covered in this! Best advice I can give you right now is checkthe blog for portrait tips (http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/category/portrait-photography/) and see if that answers some of your questions.

[clockdoc]

Hi. Try shooting some samples of headshots using what you know right now. Post them to the critique board and ask for some help. I recently did some "headshots" of folks in our Sunday School class for a photo/phone directory. I used a simple Kodak 3MP camera with the onboard flash and posed the about 4 feet from the plain wall. For posing I had them stand at about a 30 degree angle off a line perpendicular to the camera. I shot several shots both in horizontal and vertical format as that changed the position of the onboard flash. The images were later processed through Photoshop for a little retouching and color correcting. Here is one example of the "Before" shot:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8359753@N07/544262165/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1386/544262165_9bcf487a6b.jpg" width="333" height="500" alt="100_2128_test_1" /></a>
I extracted the person and put them on a background created from a sample chip of counter tyle. You could also just place them on a plain background.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/8359753@N07/544262169/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1422/544262169_7d5c3edb02.jpg" width="346" height="500" alt="img006+Tommy_test_2" /></a>
I'll be happy to help where I can.

[thingy]

Avv604,

Try getting your strobe off camera to avoid the harsh, flattening front light you get with camera mounted strobe and the dark shadows. Use a PC cable or better still a remote trigger (super cheap on ebay). Alternatively you can invest in a lightsphere from http://www.garyfong.com/ (Gary Fong). I don't personally own one as I'm in Peru at the moment, but will be buying one on my return to the UK in September. They come highly recommended from the various websites I have researched. Check it out anyway and let me know what you think.

G