Be honest, how many of you love(d) your high school yearbook photo? Likely not many of you – and there’s good reason for that, most of which has to do with your expression. Teenagers are often self conscious, and don’t like having their picture taken – combine that with the fact that those sessions are more often than not “a factory” – “Ok, look at the camera, smile (say cheese) – click – turn your head that way – smile, click – Next”. The photographer isn’t really working with you – you’re just number 157 of hundreds of kids he/she needs to shoot that day. And as a student, you can’t wait to get it over with – so the resulting smile? Let’s just say it looks like you had something bad to eat…

Smiles come in all shapes, sizes, levels of energy/intensity – and it’s very personal. Some people naturally smile with teeth, some without. Some people’s smiles are asymmetrical, almost smirky, others very subtle. And people smile differently for different reasons – the polite smile (while you’re thinking something totally opposite from smiling) looks very different than the genuine smile vs. the smile that precedes or comes after laughter. When someone smiles with a lot of energy or as a reaction to something funny, you can actually plot the intensity on a bell curve – the smile builds up to a peak and then tails off. Photographically, the peak is not necessarily where you want to press the shutter button, at least for business headshots as the person’s eyes may be very squinched.

When we look at a photograph of someone, we have an instantaneous and often sub-conscious reaction (studies have shown in as little as 80 msec) – does the person look genuine, is this person trustworthy, competent, friendly – do I want to meet them? In general, the more genuine the expression, the better. Genuine smiles generally involve smiling with the eyes as well as the mouth – when people smile naturally, the eyes generally smile as well. Regardless of the level of energy, we like looking at photos that look genuine – which is why many people don’t like their high school yearbook picture.

We also often have different “expectations” for how someone should look, depending on what we’re looking for, why we’re looking at that person’s image, in what context it is, etc.. For example, our expectations for the look/expression for a criminal attorney is likely very different from our expectations of the look/expression of say a career coach.

My job is to work with you to explore with you the best look for you, your brand, and the audience who will be looking at your photo. And to capture those “aha” moments that show the best of you.

The examples below show how the impression created by their different expressions evoke different reactions (yes, there are other changes in hair and wardrobe respectively which also have an impact).  In both cases the final image we wound up with are on the right – there’s a great balance of energy in both their expressions – confidence with approachability.

What do you feel when you see the expressions in these images?