How to Take a Headshot

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How to Take A Great Dance Headshot Many of us can't afford the huge costs of having a professional headshot done. So, if you're a do-it-yourselfer, here are some tips. CAMERA - I use a 2.5 megapixel camera on the highest resolution (no this does not come out as clearly as professional pictures do, but with the right picture manipulation, printer and printer paper, it can come close). When the pictures empty on the computer, they will be 72 dots per inch. That is not good enough for printing a headshot. So, you will have to convert it to 300 dots per inch (dpi) and find some way to resize and crop your picture to 8X10 or 5X7, depending on your needs. The best program to make these changes in is Adobe Photoshop. If you don't have access to this expensive program, sometimes you can find it on library computers and almost all colleges have it in one lab or another. If you're a student, you can probably find a student version in your college bookstore for under $100.00 or buy an older, used version on EBAY Adobe Photoshop 4.0 or higher will do. TAKE A LOT OF SHOTS Take a lot of shots from different angles with different lighting. Lighting is the key to taking great do-it-yourself pictures. Bad lighting = bad pictures. I don't necessarily mean that you need a lot of lighting. You need the correct lighting for your location. You need to experiment with different amounts of light and different types of light. For instance, taking a picture inside will give you totally different results than taking a picture outdoors and much of that difference is due to the natural vs. unnatural lighting. It takes hours of shots to get just the right shot. Plan on at least a half day to full day session of shots. Buy lots of batteries or have your camera battery recharger ready. BODY ANGLES The subject should not be close up to the background, otherwise you will get shadows. Stand near the background and take at least three steps forward. Look for any potential for shadows and adjust your position or your subjects position. Professional photographers have the luxury of using lighting to manipulate shadows. However, do-it-yourselfers have to adjust on a budget! If you are taking shots in a location, look through the lens and note what objects or distractions are behind your subject and adjust accordingly. For instance, a beautiful shot of your subject smiling on the steps would certainly not be attractive if you didn't see the big wad of gum on one of the steps next to her. Look for imperfections before you shoot! There are three distances you should work with - 1. Very close up face shot to the camera from the top of the hair to the collarbones. 2. Medium shot - leaving a little space above the head to just above or below the belt-line of the person's waist and 3. Full-body shot. Leaving some space above the head and making sure not to cut off the feet. Head and body positions should vary too. Take only a few head-on, straight shots -- these very rarely come out well. Try angling the shoulders sideways and have the person look over their right or left shoulder into the camera. Instruct them to bring their chins up or down. Sometimes if you instruct the person to look over your shoulder into the distance and then look at you with only their eyes (instead of turning their head to look at you), you can get a very nice shot. Sometimes people get goofy looks on their faces or they don't smile or hold their heads correctly. As the person taking the picture, make a habit of giving the person breaks and telling them to close their eyes, scrunch up the face to relax the muscles or look away from the camera and then refocus on the camera. Music can help a lot. Find a piece of music or a CD that really makes that person feel good and play it over and over again during the shoot. Their inner attitude will appear in the photographs with, perhaps, a new look they didn't have before. THE EYES ARE THE KEY Pay attention to how the eyes look in the picture. Are the eyes too open, too closed? Are the eyes warm and inviting, friendly, sassy?
What to wear Choose clothes that will fit the type of dance you want to specialize in. If you don't want to limit yourself to one specialty, then wear something that would be versatile. In other words, don't wear hip hop pants and a cut off shirt if you also want to audition for ballet. You might want to take pictures of a number of looks so you can pick and choose what shot you'll use depending on the audition (expensive unless you print the pictures yourself off of a computer). Whatever type of headshot you plan on, the rule is this: Wear plain clothing with no print. Wear clothes that are neat, clean and professional. Unless the clothing is meant to be wrinkled, use an iron. Choose a couple of different tops in different colors. Take the same shots in different shirts. Sometimes, you can take pictures that seem perfect only to find that you forgot not to wear a black shirt on a dark background. Switching top colors, some light and some dark, help you get the perfect contrast against your background. It will also help you choose the right shot to match your skin tone. Take chances and try bright or rich reds, yellows, blues and greens. All colors will look different in each picture you take. You never know what experimenting will do for you! Background Choose a very plain background. White is difficult to shoot on. If you want a white background, either you have to have a great camera, perfect lighting or simply pay the bucks to get the picture done professionally. It is very difficult to get a shot on a white background that doesn't turn blue, yellow or green because of the lighting. Instead, try a light gray. I usually get cloth background for $1.00 a yard a Walmart. You have to look in the bargain section every couple of weeks and wait for the right fabric (on the thicker side, no pattern). BACKGROUND - FULL-BODY SHOTS For full-body shots, I buy 16 yards and cut them into four "four yard" lengths and find a place to hang them. That way, you can cover the head room above. If you want the cloth to cover the floor too, get a little more cloth and cut the pieces into 5 yard lengths. Three panels across will almost give you enough room to take a first position arabesque, but you'll have to play with your distance and camera angle. Four panels across is perfect.
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