Viewing entries tagged
santa cruz
It’s pretty rare I can’t find a spot inside or outside a client’s home to take headshots. Not only is it convenient for my clients that I come to them, but they can easily change into different shirts/jackets all in the comfort of their own space. We took these photos in the living room of his home in Santa Cruz. Portable lighting equipment FTW!
This client appreciate the convenience of me coming directly to his home to set up a studio and get some new headshots for LinkedIn. We set up in his kitchen area where the ceilings were highest, and used one of the white walls for our background. He picked his favorite single photo from the session, and I included a black and white version, because options are good, right?
Santa Cruz local business Current eBikes needed a refresh on their image library for their new website and marketing efforts. I’m an expert in creating diverse, high quality media libraries for my clients – typically in one or two sessions. This typically includes interior and exterior “architecture” style photography, to show the space/location of the business. Next are owner headshots / environmental portraits to highlight them in their natural habitat in a pleasing way. Staff headshots are an easy add-on while we’re at it. Also, if the business has services involved (like working on bikes), it’s great to include candid (or directed) photos showing that service. Lastly are detail / product photos – in this case all inventory comes with great product photography from the manufacturers, so I captured detail shots that could be used in any number of ways for design, advertising or marketing purposes.
Something medium to large corporate organizations struggle with in regards to executive portraits is inconsistency. If you try to exactly match certain background with different photographers in different locations over different time periods, even if the photographers do a good job there’s going to be variation in that media collection that will be obvious to everyone. One of the things I like to do is give each person a variety of settings to shoot in so that we’re baking variety into the photographic cake, and those subtle variations in lighting, etc will be much less of a factor. This shoot had 5 or 6 spots I’d picked out for each person with wildly different lighting requirements – ranging from 1/125 to 1/2000 shutter speed to keep a consistent 1.8 to 2.2 aperture setting for a shallow depth-of-field look for all the waist-up shots. All these were shot on a Nikon Z7 with the native 85mm 1.8 S lens with one Profoto B1 flash off-camera shooting through a 30” Profoto Octa. I love keeping my lighting setup simple and mobile, which cuts down on how much time I need with each executive while also delivering a diverse library of images for each person to choose from.
All my headshots are on-location, meaning I come to my clients’ homes, offices, or we meet outside. I bring lighting equipment to get that professional studio look, pretty much wherever we are. In the case of these two Santa Cruz lawyers, we went across the street from their downtown office and I picked a spot that would have the sun to their backs and have a nice, natural, out-of-focus background. It’s important that the headshot background not distract from your subject, and if possible – enhance it! Here’s the money shots…
Look, I know headshots are not everyone’s favorite – it’s often thought of as a “necessary evil” – kinda like going to the dentist. Except I can promise you one thing, it won’t be painful, and instead of coming back to me every 6 months, what I do for business professionals will serve them for a decade. And the best thing? Every year you have this new headshot, you’ll like it more. Heck, by the time that decade comes around, you’ll be so fond of that photo you’ll seriously consider never replacing it. But you will. And you will call me.
Enjoy my favorite business headshots from this amazing Santa Cruz real estate team, including their mascot. Go Team!
This was a quick headshot for one person in Santa Cruz, California. We met up near Crow’s Nest at Twin Lakes beach on a weekday morning, and our goal was to get a few different backdrops that felt natural without distracting from the subject. The first shot is with the ocean in the background, the wood shot is the side of the restaurant in a breezeway, and the last shot I positioned my subject in the shade, with some nice, sunlit green foliage in the background. All in about 15 minutes, easy!
A magazine contacted me recently to photograph this local doctor for a story they are writing about him. The only qualifications were to get some portrait and landscape orientation shots, and to make sure the subject brought his bike along to use as a prop. Since he's also a surfer, we met at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz to get a unique setting/backdrop for the shots. Here's a couple of my faves from the session:
Brenda needed some portraits for her new real estate venture, but she wanted more of a natural lifestyle feel to the photos than your typical executive headshot. She sent me a few sample images for the look and feel she was going for, so I suggested a natural light shoot at Wilder Ranch in Santa Cruz. It’s very rustic, with lots of old buildings, barns, distressed wood textures, rickety fences – the perfect backdrop for Brenda’s vision.
