Why your top matters more than you think
A headshot is cropped tight. Chest up, sometimes closer. Whatever you are wearing fills roughly a third of the frame, sits directly beneath your face and bounces its colour upwards. A bright orange polo throws a warm cast onto your jaw. A brilliant white shirt under two lights in a City boardroom reads a stop brighter than your skin and pulls the viewer’s eye away from your eyes. Neither is fixable afterwards without the picture looking odd.
Background matters just as much. In my Shoreditch studio I mostly work with a big north-facing window and a mid-grey or off-white backdrop. On site I get whatever the meeting room offers: a white wall, a glass partition, occasionally a beige one nobody has repainted since 2009. Your clothing has to separate you from that surface. A dark jacket against a white office wall works beautifully. A light grey jumper against a light grey wall gives you a floating head.
Colours that hold up on camera
Solid mid-to-dark colours are the safe ground: navy, charcoal, ink blue, deep forest green, burgundy, a proper mid-grey. They sit a comfortable distance from most skin tones, they hold detail in the weave, and they age slowly. A navy blazer from five years ago still looks like a navy blazer.
Black is overrated for headshots, and I will happily argue about it. It is the default pick for about half the people who walk in, and against a dark backdrop it collapses into a shapeless mass with a head on top. If you want black, bring something with visible texture, a knit rather than flat cotton, or wear a lighter shirt underneath so there is a line where your shoulders end.
Colour carries a message whether you intend one or not. Finance and legal sitters tend to look right in navy and charcoal, which is why most corporate photography days in the Square Mile end up looking like a navy convention. Founders, consultants and creatives can carry rust, mustard, olive or a strong blue without it reading as fancy dress. If your whole sector wears one uniform, wearing that uniform slightly better beats rebelling against it.
Wear this, avoid this
| Element | Wear this | Avoid this | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colour | Navy, charcoal, deep green, burgundy, mid-grey | Bright white, neon, anything the same tone as the wall behind you | Separation from the background and no colour cast on your face |
| Pattern | Solid, or texture you only notice up close | Fine stripes, small checks, herringbone, tight houndstooth | Tight repeats cause moire banding on a sensor |
| Fabric | Matte cotton, wool, fine knit, structured jersey | Satin, shiny polyester, crumpled linen | Shine picks up every light in the room; creases read as scruffy |
| Fit | Slightly fitted, shoulder seam sitting on your shoulder | Baggy, or one size too tight across the chest | Fit is what makes a photo look expensive |
| Neckline | Crew, modest V, open collar, simple polo | Deep V, wide scoop, high roll neck | The crop cuts you at the chest, so extremes look strange |
| Layers | Blazer, cardigan, unstructured jacket | Bulky coats, scarves, hoods | A jacket gives the shoulders shape and doubles your looks |
| Jewellery | One small piece you already wear daily | New statement pieces, anything highly reflective | Reflective metal draws the eye off the face |
| Logos | Small, subtle, or nothing at all | Large brand marks, slogans, lanyards | Logos date the picture and pull focus |
Patterns and the moire problem
Fine repeating patterns and camera sensors fight each other. When the weave in a shirt lands close to the pixel pitch of the sensor you get moire: shimmering rainbow banding across the fabric that looks like a printing fault. I see it most on pinstripe shirts, small gingham checks and herringbone jackets. A Clerkenwell consultant once arrived in a lovely pale pinstripe, and every frame had a faint green and magenta ripple crawling across his shoulder. We switched to the plain blue spare in his bag and it took two minutes. Which is exactly why you bring a spare.
Texture is fine. A cable knit, a chunky weave, a linen-look blazer, all of that adds depth and none of it repeats tightly enough to cause trouble. Rough rule: if you can still make out the individual pattern from across a room, it is texture. If it dissolves into a grey haze, it is a risk.
Necklines, layers and what the crop does to them
A tight crop cuts you off somewhere around the top of the chest, so anything low disappears and anything high crowds the jaw. Crew necks, V-necks that stop short of dramatic, open collars and simple polos all frame the face cleanly. High roll necks shorten the neck and swallow the jawline, which most people are not aiming for.
Layers earn their place. A blazer over a shirt or a fine knit gives structure to the shoulders, and structure matters because within about ninety seconds of the first frame most people’s shoulders start creeping towards their ears. A jacket gives me a line to work with and gives you something to hold your posture against. It also produces two visibly different looks, jacket on and jacket off, without you changing clothes. If you want a tight profile crop and a wider branded portrait from the same sitting, that jacket is doing half the work.
Glasses, shine and grooming
Glasses are not a problem. Reflections are. If your lenses carry an anti-reflective coating we are usually fine. If they don’t, I tilt the arms down a couple of degrees behind your ears so the lens angles slightly away from the light, and nobody can tell in the finished frame. Bring empty frames if your optician gave you a spare pair, because that removes the issue entirely. Photochromic lenses that darken indoors are the real headache, so mention them when you book.
Foreheads and noses shine under any light. I keep blotting papers and a translucent powder in the kit bag, but your own powder in your own shade is better. Heavy contouring and strong highlighter behave very differently on camera than in a bathroom mirror, so go one notch lighter than you would for an evening out. Book a haircut about a week ahead rather than the day before, and if you shave, shave on the morning of the shoot.
What to bring on the day
- Two or three tops in different colours, at least one solid and mid-to-dark.
- A jacket or blazer, even if you are convinced you won’t wear it.
- A lint roller. Dark wool plus the Central line equals a shoulder full of fluff.
- Powder or blotting papers in your own shade.
- Spare glasses frames if reflections have caused trouble before.
- Water. Ten minutes of talking under lights dries anyone out.
Hang the clothes rather than folding them into a rucksack. Ironed the night before beats a hopeful shake-out in the lift. And in August, carry the shirt you intend to wear rather than wearing it across town.
If you only do one thing
If you take one thing from this: wear a solid, mid-to-dark top you already own and feel normal in, bring a jacket, stop there. The outfit that makes people look best is almost never the newest thing they own. It is the one they have worn to twenty meetings and no longer think about. New clothes make people fiddle with the collar, and I can see the fiddling in the frames.
Second thing, and it has nothing to do with clothing: the first five minutes decide the session. I tether to a laptop so you can see real frames within a minute, because the fastest way to relax someone who hates photographs is to show them a good picture of themselves. After that the shoulders drop, the jaw unclenches, and the chin-forward trick does the rest. Push your forehead very slightly towards the camera rather than lifting your chin. It feels ridiculous and it works every time. Team days run on the same principle, only faster, which is why a rota of ten-minute slots is realistic and five-minute slots are not.
If you’re deciding between two shirts, photograph both on a hanger and send them over when you book a headshot session. I would rather sort that beforehand than lose ten good minutes to it on the day. The contact page is the quickest way to pin down a date.