A professional headshot with your phone: lighting, framing and the mistakes to avoid

Why the photograph matters

• People choose people. A clear photograph tells a visitor that there is a real person behind the page, and helps them imagine meeting you.
• It builds trust faster than any wording, especially for professions where clients are nervous: health, law, money, therapy, home design.
• It makes you recognisable. A client who sees your photograph on your page, your listing and your profile knows they have found the right person.
• It sets a tone. Warm, direct and calm is nearly always right.

What you need

• A recent smartphone. Any phone from the last several years is good enough.
• A window with soft daylight. No special lights are needed.
• A plain background: a wall, a door or a tidy bookshelf.
• A friend, or a tripod or a stack of books so that the phone stays steady and at the right height.
• Twenty minutes, and a mirror to check how you look.

Set up the light

1. Find a large window that does not have direct sun streaming in. A north-facing window or an overcast day gives soft, flattering light. Direct sun creates harsh shadows and squinting.
2. Stand about a metre from the window, facing it or at an angle, so that the light falls on your face.
3. Never stand with the window behind you. Your face will be dark, and the phone will make it a silhouette.
4. Turn off the room lights if they create a coloured cast. Mixed light looks strange.
5. If one side of your face is darker than you like, hold a large piece of white card or a sheet on the shadow side to bounce some light back.

Choose the background

• Keep it simple and uncluttered, and a little way behind you, not touching your back, so it softens.
• Plain neutral colours work: white, grey, soft blue, muted green. Avoid busy patterns, bright posters and visible mess.
• A real place that fits your work can be good: a tidy office, a clinic room, a studio, a library. Check for anything private in view.
• Avoid outdoor backgrounds with bright sky behind you unless you are using the right light.
• Avoid a messy room, a bed, a car interior, or anything that looks like a casual selfie.

Set up the phone

• Use the back camera, not the selfie camera. It is sharper and less distorting. Use a timer or a friend to take the picture.
• Hold the phone at eye level or a little above, never below your chin.
• Stand about two metres away and zoom in a little, to about 2x if your phone allows. Close up with a wide lens makes noses and foreheads look bigger.
• Turn on the grid lines to keep the image level and your face a third of the way down.
• Clean the lens. A smudge is the commonest reason for soft photographs.
• Use portrait mode only if the edges of your hair and shoulders look natural. Fake blur can look odd.
• Take the picture in the highest-quality setting, held steady.

Frame it for a website

On many professional websites, including BeVisible pages, the photograph sits across the top of the page on a phone, in a tall frame, with your name and details over the lower part. A photograph that works well in that space looks like this.

• Tall, in portrait orientation, not a wide landscape picture. A shape of about four units wide to five high is a good target.
• Your face in the upper part of the picture, with space above your head. The page positions the image from the top, so faces near the top stay visible when the picture is cropped.
• Head and shoulders, or head to waist, with room around you so that you can crop a square version for profiles and directories.
• Space at the bottom for text to sit over, so a plain, slightly darker area works better than your hands or a busy pattern.
• Enough resolution. A phone photograph is plenty, so long as it is sharp. You do not need to enlarge it.

What to wear and how to look

• Wear what you would wear to meet a client, and be one notch smarter. Choose solid colours that suit your skin and contrast with the background. Avoid busy patterns, large logos and anything that is trendy this season.
• Check what is normal in your profession. A doctor, a lawyer and a photographer will each dress differently.
• Avoid shirts that wrinkle or glare. Iron or steam them. Check collars and hair in the mirror.
• Keep accessories simple. Small earrings and watches are fine; large or shiny jewellery can distract.
• Expression: relaxed, slightly engaged, as if you are about to say hello to a client. Think of someone you are glad to see. Tilt your chin slightly forward and down, and turn your body a little away from the camera with your face towards it.
• Take 30 to 50 pictures, because the first few are stiff. Smile, laugh, look away and back.
• Be yourself. Use a picture that looks like you today, not a younger or more polished version. A client will meet you in person.

Choose and edit honestly

1. Review the photographs at full size and choose the one where your eyes are sharp and your expression is natural. Ask a colleague or friend, or two.
2. Crop gently to the shape you need, and keep your face in the upper part.
3. Adjust brightness and contrast slightly, and correct the colour if the skin tone looks off.
4. Remove small distractions such as a stray hair or a mark on the wall.
5. Do not use heavy filters, skin smoothing or reshaping. Clients notice, and meeting you will feel like a letdown.
6. Save a full-size copy, and a smaller version for the web. Resize and compress it before you upload. See website speed for non-technical people.

When to hire a photographer

• When your photograph is central to the work: a lawyer or consultant whose personal brand matters, an actor, a speaker.
• When you want a set that covers your site, press, talks and your team.
• When you have tried and are not happy.
• A professional headshot can cost anything from a modest fee to a large one. Look at the photographer’s portfolio for natural, unretouched work, ask what is included, and agree in writing how you may use the images. See photographer websites for how photographers license their work.

Using the photograph

• Use the same photograph on your website, your Google listing, LinkedIn and directories, so people recognise you. It also helps search engines and AI assistants be sure they describe one person.
• Give it a short description (alt text): “Anna Weiss, physiotherapist, smiling in her Bristol clinic”.
• Update it every couple of years, or after a big change in how you look.
• If you have a business rather than a personal brand, use a photograph of the team or the place alongside your logo.
• Never use someone else’s photograph, or an AI-generated face, as if it were you or your team.

Common mistakes

• Standing with a window behind you.
• A selfie taken at arm’s length with a wide lens.
• A cluttered or distracting background.
• A photograph cropped from a group or a holiday.
• A very old photograph that no longer looks like you.
• Heavy filters and skin smoothing.
• Sunglasses, a hat or a pose that hides your eyes.
• A huge file that slows down the page.

Where BeVisible fits

BeVisible asks for an upright photograph with your face near the top, lets you crop it to the right shape and position it, and offers a choice of backdrops if you have no photograph yet. You can build and preview free, and publish free for 7 days with no card needed; after that one yearly plan keeps a website online, and one plan covers one website. Start from a photo or type your details.