HOW TO GET A BADASS PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOT IN BILLINGS MONTANA! TIP 2: DITCH THE BLUE BACKGROUND!

A great looking headshot will make a powerful first impression for people who find you online. If your headshot looks professional, modern and stylish, you will make a great first impression. How do you get a professional, modern and stylish headshot in Billings Montana? Well of course you can come to us at Paul Bellinger Photography, and we can show you. But since we can’t service the entire city I’ve started a headshot tip series here on the blog for people that can’t get a sitting with us. Tip #1 is about looking your best, and you can find it on the blog here. Tip #2 is below.

Tip 2: Ditch the blue background! The blue background is all too popular in Billings these days and it’s ruining a lot people’s headshots. The speckled blue background with the extreme spotlight/vignette and hair light is the worst offender. It looks dated, plain and simple. It’s a look that was popularized by Lifetouch in the 80s and 90s for high school yearbook pictures with a ton of hair light to highlight the massive hair of the day. So the first problem is that blue background is not modern, it’s not stylish, no matter how professionally it can be done. In fact, any colored background will inevitably look dated and will be associated with a particular era (the brick wall background for instance, is very 80s). The second problem with the blue background is another problem that all colored backgrounds have: it’s distracting. When people browse your website or check out your profile on LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter, etc. they are only going to look for a few seconds, and you want them to connect with your face for as many of those seconds as possible so they start to feel like they know you. As soon as they make that human connection, you’ve got a chance. But when you have a colored background the eye immediately gets distracted away from the face and onto the background, so no connection is made in those brief few seconds and they move on to the next candidate. So to reiterate a point made in Tip #1 nothing in your headshot should compete with your face for attention. No jewelry, clothing, hair/makeup, or background should attract more attention than your face.

So now that it’s clear you shouldn’t use a colored background, and especially the blue speckle (or brick wall), what kind of background fits the criteria of professional, modern and stylish? Keep it simple! There are only 3: black, white, and gray. There is a reason these are the background colors preferred over the generations by the great master portrait artists, they look timeless, which means they always look both modern and classic and can never be pinpointed to a single era. But why did the great masters start using black, white and gray to begin with? Because these neutral, colorless backgrounds do not distract the viewers attention away from the face, making the face the true centerpiece of portraiture over the ages. Pick up any fashion magazine today, and you’ll see black, white and gray backgrounds are ubiquitous. So in conclusion, when you’re looking for a headshot photographer in Billings Montana, make sure to request a headshot on a black, white or gray background, and ditch the blue background. Read Tip #3 here!

Tips for photographers: This is the same headshot lighting technique I discussed in the previous post here. The only difference is that I’ve turned the background light off, so now the white wall is going gray. I love gray! You can adjust how dark or light the gray is by adjusting the distance between the subject and the background. When you move the subject closer to the background you also move your lights on the subject closer to the background and the white wall becomes a lighter shade of gray. Move them farther away from the background and it’ll go a darker shade of gray until it eventually goes black if you move far enough away from the background. Enjoy!

BILLINGS MONTANA PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER – TWO OF MY FAVORITE HEADSHOTS!

One of the blessings of being a portrait photographer is making portraits of the people you love the most. All portraits are special but portraits of the people you love are priceless. These are my wife’s parents, Ma and Baba, and for going on six years now, they’re my parents too. They recently made their second trip to the US for Thanksgiving and they spent over a week in Billings Montana with us. I am very thankful that I got to spend about three hours with them in the studio and we made some beautiful portraits that my wife and her family and I will forever cherish. Ma and Baba are back in Hazaribagh India now, safe and sound. Thank you to everyone who made them feel welcome during their time here.

Everyone needs a professional headshot as part of their online presence these days! Your various online profile photos will be viewed thousands of times more than your actual face will be! If you’re in business, you shouldn’t settle for anything less than putting your best face forward and you only get that from a professional portrait photographer. Visit www.portraits.paulbellinger.com to book a headshot or portrait in Billings Montana.

Tips for photographers: Do you recognize this lighting technique? It’s the same as the last post. I mentioned that I use this lighting technique often because it’s so easy to set up and everyone always loves this look (especially women). I mentioned to Ma that these would be her favorites when we were shooting this look and sure enough, when it came time to pick her absolute favorite image from her sitting, this was her favorite. Read the last post here.

BILLINGS MONTANA PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER – VANITY FAIR ACTOR HEADSHOT

This was a fun headshot to make for model/dancer/photographer Keoni, who is also a new assistant at Paul Bellinger Photography. Keoni has been helping out in the studio and frequently sits in to model for lighting tests so that everything is ready when clients arrive and they can be in and out quickly. Usually the night before a client shoot I will have Keoni come in to the studio and help me plan the shoot and set up the various lighting arrangements that I will use the next day. But sometimes we just like to experiment with new looks, such as this one, which was inspired from an actor headshot in Vanity Fair by photographer Cyrill Matter. This is a wonderful headshot look for people in creative professions, or anyone who wants a very soft and approachable look, and it works well with formal or informal clothing options. The lighting is crisp, yet the focus is soft, so it’s a very unique look that will stand out from the rest of the crowd. Visit www.portraits.paulbellinger.com to book a sitting in our downtown Billings Montana portrait studio.

Tips for photographers: The setup for this photo is inspired by a portrait of Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis by Cyrill Matter in the September 2015 issue of Vanity Fair. Cyrill’s image is a crisp black and white with very shallow depth of field, big soft front lighting with quick falloff and a little bit of back lighting to highlight the edges of the actor’s face. I found the look to be very striking, and it was the most remarkable image in the issue to me, and so I bought a copy pretty much just for that one photo (the rest of the issue wasn’t that great in my opinion). The Day-Lewis portrait is the first image you see on Cyrill’s website here: www.cyrillmatter.com. The photo reminds me of a quote from David Bailey: “I just want very sophisticated passport pictures really - which are quite hard to do!" Mission accomplished Cyrill.

To replicate the look, my first thought was to use window light so that I could shoot at a wide aperture for shallow depth of field, and the catchlight in Cyrill’s portrait kind of looks like a window or a big soft box directly behind the photographer, slightly to the camera right to give just a touch of shadow on one side for added dimension. To create the edge light I used two silver reflectors behind Keoni out of frame on each side (I use the metallic side of the insulation Styrofoam you can get at a hardware store or lumber yard). The background is a 4x8 foot white reflector about two feet behind Keoni. I’ll post a bts setup selfie on instagram @PJBellinger if you’re curious to see. This photo was made with a Sony A7ii, Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 lens at f/2, 1/160^th of a second and ISO 200.

Overall I like the look, it’s very clean and crisp, yet soft and unusual with the shallow depth of field that will certainly stand out of the corporate headshot crowd. It’s easy to setup and the shallow depth of field makes retouching a breeze. The one drawback is that shooting with such shallow depth of field makes getting the eyes sharp a little tricky, so you have to know how to focus your camera very accurately. For studio work I always use manual focus with the focus peeking feature and manual focus assist on the Sony A7ii, which essentially zooms in on the image in the electronic viewfinder so you can check focus very accurately, especially when the eyes light up with focus peeking. I really like this feature and it’s fun to shoot in manual and it’s also fun to nail the focus every time. These features are some of the main perks of having an electronic viewfinder.

BILLINGS MONTANA PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER – SHADYA’S PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS HEADSHOTS

Shadya is a smart woman!  She’s getting a jump start on her career while she’s still in college, using a professional headshot to help apply for internships and job interviews.  There is no substitute for a high quality headshot to market yourself in today’s digital age.  Recent studies have shown that quality matters when it comes to photos that people relate to.  People can tell the difference between professional and amateur photos 90% of the time, and are more than twice as likely to interact with a professional photo (click here for the study).  A good headshot can speak volumes in a split second, and in the digital world where decisions are made quickly, what your headshot says about you could make a crucial difference.  Good headshots are hard to come by in a smaller city like Billings Montana, it seems to be a lost art form here, leaving the general public to settle for average or below average headshots that are less impactful for their businesses.  But this is a blessing for people who invest in a high quality professional headshot now, because it will certainly stand out from the crowd in this market.

Here at Paul Bellinger Photography we are committed to the art of portraiture, offering the highest quality portrait and headshot experience in Billings. Contact us to schedule your studio session today (we can usually accommodate last minute and same day bookings with two hours of notice).  www.portraits.paulbellinger.com

Tips for photographers:
How is the first portrait lit?  Can you see for yourself?  Deciphering light is a critical skill for photographers and you should be able to replicate almost any lighting techniques you can see.  But you’ll never learn if you don’t try and figure it out for yourself!  In the first photo the main light is obviously coming from camera right based on the highlight on the left side of Shadya’s face.  It must be a big light source because it’s very soft.  There is also a highlight on the right (camera left) side of Shadya’s face, so there is clearly a soft light source camera left as well.  Be sure to check the catchlights in her eyes for and idea of where the lights are placed.  Have it figured out yet?  The main light is a large window out of frame camera right and the second light source is a large 4x8’ reflector out of frame camera left to bounce some of the window light back onto the shadow side of Shadya’s face.  This is my go to lighting technique because it looks good on everyone!  The light is soft, which is flattering for all skin types, and because the light is coming from the side it has a directional quality that provides dimension to the face with very soft shadows.  It’s a very forgiving lighting setup and when I don’t have a window I use a large softbox very close to the subject to replicate the soft window light.  The larger and closer the light source you can create, the softer the light will be, whether you use a window or a studio strobe.

How is the second portrait lit?  You tell me!  There are three lights.  I'll put an iPhone photo of the lighting setup on instagram @PJBellinger.  For more photography tips on the blog click here.

BILLINGS MONTANA PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER – WIFEY HEADSHOT

My beautiful wife is a political scientist at MSUB and I really enjoyed making her new professional headshot.  She is all business when it comes to political science, so she wanted to look serious and chose the most serious pose from the whole set.  She’s not messing around!  Haha!  It was fun to have her in the studio again after a long time.  I used to make her pose for me all the time when I was learning the art of portraiture.  She used to get so mad at me for making her pose for too long!  And that’s usually when I got the best poses out of her, looking mad.  So I love the stern look on her face, it reminds me of the good old days!

Tip for photographers:

This is one of my favorite lighting setups at the studio.  It’s all natural light from a big block of windows out of frame to camera right about two feet from Nisha and two 4x8’ white reflectors in a V pattern opening towards Nisha out of frame to the left.  Without the reflector the shadows on her face would be too dark and her hair would blend into the background even more than it already does.  The background is a black wall.  Beside my preference for black backgrounds, I also like having my walls painted black because it helps control the light in my studio, which can be difficult because it is small, so it’s hard to prevent the light from bouncing everywhere.  With a really large studio it’s easier, because light falls off (reduces in power) over distance, so as long as you have enough space between subject and background you can always make the background go black, or light it separately and make it any exposure or color you’d like, without having the background light affect the subject and vice versa.  But in a small studio we have to use a lot of flags (usually black foam core) to block the light from hitting anything we don’t want and reflecting back into our shot.  It can be tricky, but if you’re struggling in a small studio, I recommend reducing the light from ambient sources, and using flags, grids, and light modifiers that will let you control your strobes.  If you have a window, you can control the quality of the light by opening or closing the curtains (or you can use a flag or reflector if you don’t have curtains) to create just the light you want.  Read more about manipulating natural light in the studio here.

Making lasting portraits of the people I love is one of the most rewarding things about being a professional photographer.  Portraits become more powerful with time, even if they are often taken for granted in the short term.  We will cherish this portrait one day, and I would be honored to make a portrait of you for your loved ones to cherish.  www.portraits.paulbellinger.com

BILLINGS MT PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER – HEADSHOTS FOR DAME AGENCY

We are a full service portrait studio in Billings Montana and we especially love making corporate headshots for business professionals and portfolio headshots for models, musicians, actors and other creatives.  DAME Agency is a new modeling agency in town and I did a test shoot with some of their talented models.  Featured here is Jessica and Tylan, both are currently available for modeling and acting gigs in Billings Montana and beyond.  Jess’s career is taking off quickly and I’m sure she’ll be relocating to a major modeling market before too long.  I look forward to working with DAME Agency again soon.

Tips for photographers: Can you see the light?  The main light is a fairly hard light source judging from the shadow cast by the models’ noses, but it’s not as hard as direct day light.  It’s a 22 inch beauty dish with a diffusion sock on it that is about 4 feet from the models.  You can judge the location of the beauty dish by the catchlights in their eyes and the nose shadows.  What other lights do you see?  Notice how even in the darkest shadows on the camera right side of the frame are clearly separated from the background.  That’s created by a second light on the background, a smaller beauty dish placed up above the models’ heads pointed onto the background to create the vignette that you see.  A very tiny bit of this light is catches the top of their hair (see the top of Jessica’s hand), creating a nice hairlight.  Lastly, you can still see details on the shadow side of Tylan’s face, and that is because there is a white reflector out of the frame to the camera right that is bouncing the main light back into the shadow areas, filling in those shadows with a very soft light (hence the common phrase “fill light”).

Billings Montana portrait Photographer Paul Bellinger, specializing in modern, stylish portraits from corporate headshots to fashion editorials.  We take the classic art of portraiture seriously because we have a passion for portraits that you won’t find anywhere else in Billings Montana.  http://www.portraits.paulbellinger.com