Business Headshot

[Rentham]

Exposure: 1/125th
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 200mm
ISO: 100

Strip bank on top, two medium softboxes left and right, reflector underneath. Did standard RAW adjustments then a poor man's BW with Lightroom's auto BW conversion.

Thoughts on the skin tone? Steve is a very fair guy, so I felt like his skin needed a little more contrast. But any additional contrast started to show the blood vessels in his face (checks and nose) and became very distracting.

I'd also like to hear thoughts on the expression. Steve is a salesman for a small local business that works in social media marketing services. We thought it was important to make the images very approachable since he's selling things that many small business owners (his target market) don't understand. I was going for a blend of confidence and approachability.

And of course, any other thoughts and critiques are welcome.

[BigFuzzy]

Hola Mike,
I find that capturing a specific expression is possibly the toughest part of these types of shoots and I think you nailed it. I had "confident" and "friendly" in mind before I ever read your text (I always look at the image before reading so as to come at it 'clean'). So yeah, no issue there.

Skin tone looks fine. Nice and bright and spry without any weird tone issues to me. To me, if it passes the "does he look normal?" test, it's good to go. So again, well done there.

Two very small issues on skin: 1. That dark spot in the top right (his top left) of his forehead. My eyes went to it pretty quick. Maybe just me, but I don't think it could hurt to remove it if he'd allow it? 2. On the left (his right) cheek, just below the meatier part of his cheek there appears to be what looks like a darkish circle.. almost looks as if a clone/heal was done with a darker part of skin used as source.. or is it me?

Please keep in mind that both observations were done really trying to analize the image.. casual viewers may not notice them.

The only general observation on something I don't love is the tilt. Feels a bit unnatural, as if he's falling over almost.

Love the clarity and sharpness of his eyes.

That's my only uber-nit-picky commentary.
In the end it's a good shot that's perfectly useable. Well done as usual Mike.

[Rentham]

Thanks for the feedback, Al. My retouching philosophy on these kinds of shots is generally "hands off", so there's been no cloning or healing. The forehead is an age spot and I guess the cheek is rosacea or something similar. That was a big reason I went with BW. The rosacea was the most colorful thing about his skin in the color version. He has it across both cheeks and his nose.

But, you're right, both are apparent enough to be distracting. I'll probably tone them down without removing them entirely.

[BigFuzzy]

I totally have the same philosophy, just thought I'd point it out that I did notice.

Either way, the expression, which I feel was most important (and difficult) you nailed.