Picture Yourself...

Last night I had to take some extra time to pick clothes for work because we were all going to get our pictures taken today.  Having a good head-shot is part of professional life these days and I believe they are important.   I see a lot of poor pictures of people and while I understand you want your picture to capture who you are, some pictures really make no sense from a business perspective.  Now I might see myself as a non-conventional person, but unless I was looking for a job on a psychic-hotline, I would think twice about getting creative with something like this.

 

One mistake I almost made, was grabbing a blue cardigan.  Blue is a good color for me so that was what I first grabbed.  Then I realized that I would look like my last head-shot.  This one was taken a year ago and was used by my employer to create a "baseball" card that would go in kits that we sent to new clients.  They used a team/game theme and the color blue was important -- lucky for me, it matched my photo really well.  I was very happy with this shot and used it on LinkedIn.  It was too staid for my blog image, so I put in a different background.  However, it would have been a real waste to get back in front of a professional photographer with the same outfit and glasses.

This had been my prior LinkedIn image.  It is a selfie and while I generally don't like the way they look as a profile, it was the only option because I couldn't afford a professional.  In order to get good lighting, I sat in front of a window, then I dimmed the background.  It worked out pretty well.

I can't wait to see the pictures from today.  We did see them on the screen and the photographer did a a really good job.  Wanting to go for an entirely different look, I wore a cheeta print and very blingy necklace, leggins and my new flat black boots.  My glasses had gold rims too.  The photographer and his assistant are people I know through my social circle, so it was a very easy-going and social experience.  It actual felt like I was part of a photo-shoot.

While I generally zero in on all my flaws and don't like to post pictures of myself, I realize that is not a healthy state of mind.  Rather than using an intentionally obscured angle, or trying to hide myself, I'm willing to trust a pro and put it out there.  Women are always afraid of their imperfections and I struggle too. In the end, I think it's unhealthy to avoid having picture taken of yourself and being afraid for others to see them.  I felt fortunate today to have an opportunity to have a talented artist capture what he saw and can't wait to see the final results.