Ah, the new year. It’s the time when people make up their mind to join gyms, clean their closet and get a new profile portrait.

I have strong ideas on how business portraits should look and how to get the best use out of them. If you are going through effort to plan, get a haircut, buy new clothes, get dolled up, you might as well get the most use out of these portraits as possible.

The best thing you can do is to start to create a personal library of looks and images that you can use for different purposes. Most of my clients find it especially useful to be able to have one photograph for their website and a different photograph for LinkedIn. A third portrait if they author an article and even another one to use for the program at a convention.

Your business portrait should telegraph adjectives to the viewer and it should do so quickly since the attention span of web visitors is less than a second. A portrait should say ‘professional’ or ‘serious’ or ‘creative’ or ‘approachable’…or a combination of these adjectives. If it doesn’t, it’s a waste of money.

Not surprisingly, there’s a sales pitch here: For the new year, I have my most popular promotion…save almost $200 on your business portrait and even get professional make-up.  I will guide you with clothing suggestions and complete posing instructions. Professional Business portraitsI won’t tell you to simply sit and smile… I will tell you which foot to put your weight on, where to place your hands, how much to tilt your head. I might try a standing photograph, or even leaning on a table. The more choices you have, the better.

However, whether you go with me or another photographer for your new portrait, make sure they understand what you are trying to accomplish with your photograph, who your audience is and what you want your portrait to say about you.  Also, make sure that there’s a guarantee…you don’t want to waste money.

If you are interested in my January promotion, learn more here or call 973-783-1065