Professional Studio Portrait for Artists/Musicians

/ / / / / Cropping headshots for a more dynamic effect

I’m sure you’ve all seen that style of headshot where the photographer has graciously chosen to slice the top of their subject’s head cut for dramatic effect—but in this post, we are going to dissect another bizarre cutting/cropping technique that we sometimes use to add life to the shot without having our clients put in much effort at all.

Although the eyes and face are with out a doubt the most expressive part of your headshots, the reason we would want to include a portion of the body is to add more depth to the subject’s personality. The hand on the hips activates the shoulder and creates body language that would only ever appear naturally in real life for a few moments (perhaps while waiting in line or listening to a friend ramble on about their day). Thus when we see this pose initially, much like a symbol, our brains automatically register the subtle shoulder action as a candid moment that just happened to get captured on camera.

This technique comes in handy if you’re one of those totally normal people who have no idea what to do with their hands in the shot !