Wear your Personality

Do you want your headshots and/or portraits to appear genuine and authentic? Your clothing should reflect your personality and present you in the way you want to be perceived. Avoid wearing an outfit unless it truly suits your style.

If you prefer a casual look, opt for professional casual attire while considering other tips provided. A solid button-down shirt or blouse with three-quarter or long sleeves strikes a balance between casual and professional.

For a fun headshot or branding vibe, choose bright colors or accessories like hats (my personal favorite), bow ties, jewelry, scarves, or vibrant shoes to express that. If you lean towards a trendy appearance, embrace it. If you favor a classic look, that's perfectly fine too! Staying true to yourself will shine through in your photos. Truly, nothing is too boring or too loud. People want to see the real you!

If you are dressing for artistic portraits or family portraits, Megan will be working with you to make sure your work fits in your current (any any future) home.

Be Cohesive with your Brand

Wear colors and styles that align with your brand to ensure your images seamlessly fit into your overall aesthetic. Consistency with your brand identity helps enhance your recognizability.

Consider your brand colors and choose outfits that either match or complement them.

Reflect on your brand's style—whether it's modern, classic, eccentric, casual, vibrant, fun, or earthy—and select clothing that aligns with your brand message.

Solids, Please

Patterns can be so distracting! Our main goal is to keep the focus on your face and expressions, so avoid wearing patterns. Large patterns can also make you appear wider. Solid colors are your best choice for any type of photo!

Thin pinstripes don’t translate well in digital images and can cause pixel distortion, moire. You don’t want to see distorted pinstripes, right?

HINT: Wearing the color of your eyes can make the eyes really stand out in your pictures.

Fitted Clothing for the WIN!

We all try to hide flaws behind loose clothing, I am guilty of this too. But, because pictures are two dimensional, loose clothing actually makes you appear wider. Only those super skinny models (and my sister-in-law) can make over sized clothing look cute and cozy. For rest of us, it’s best to wear properly fitted clothes to look leaner and taller. Don’t we all want to achieve leaner and taller?

Too tight clothing can also work against us by stretch lines in the fabric, so choose a nice slim fit, that lets you breathe easy!

Color Choice- Be Neutral, Bright and Rich

Bright colors translate as fun, bold and different!

If your photographer knows how to light you correctly, white translates as bright, fresh and clean for personal branding. In-fact, white is one of my favorite color for branding imagery.

Dark, rich colors smooth out your figure. Choose rich, dark tones with texture to add dimension.

Neck Lines Matter

Depending on the length of your natural neck, we can shorten or elongate your look. For example, if your neck is on the shorter side, deeper necklines (such as a V-neck) will make your neck appear longer in pictures. A V-neckline will also complement men/women with rounder and/or wider faces as well. Not sure if your neck is long or short? A V-neckline or a scoop neckline pretty much looks good on everyone- you can’t go wrong with this choice.

Looking to minimize your bust? Opt for a square neckline, V-neckline or collars.

Now, if you have a longer neck, a high neckline — turtleneck, crew neck or boatneck — is your best bet. Higher neckline draws the eye out to your shoulders to make you appear more proportioned. One of my favorite images of all time is by Ansel Adams when he photographed Audrey Hepburn wearing a black turtle neck… just timeless.

Accessories- YES, Please!

Accessories make statements!

A fun pair of shoes with a neutral outfit adds just the right amount of pop, helping you stand out without being distracting.

Hats, jewelry, scarves, suspenders, etc. can add that surprise element to make your images unique showcasing your unique personality.

Sometimes it’s hard to nail the right look that matches your vision perfectly. Bringing a variety of outfits and accessories helps ensures you have variety to select from.

You know you may want to use your headshots for Linked in, Outlook, Website, Social media profiles. Think about speaking engagements you may have, marketing content where a specific look would help setting the vibe without having to use too many words. Having a variety of images in different outfits, keeps your content fresh!

I hope you found these tips helpful for planning your photo shoot. Remember… If you are working with Megan, she will personally come and help you!

Megan

What to wear to your portrait session…