Headshots that match the work you build.

Your work is photographed better than you are.

Anyone choosing a firm does the same two things in the same order. They look at the work, and then they look at who made it. The work is usually shot by a professional, lit properly, and presented with real care. The portraits underneath are often a mixed bag of crops and phone snaps, and the drop in quality between the two is visible in about a second. It reads as a small inconsistency in a field where consistency is the entire product.

There is a lot riding on that second look. A homeowner is about to hand a firm an enormous amount of money and eighteen months of their life. A developer is deciding whether your team can hold a schedule. What they are really trying to read off a portrait is judgment: does this person notice things, finish things, care how it turns out. Composure and attention to detail photograph surprisingly well, but only if the portrait itself was made with any.

The catch is that principals in this field are almost always more comfortable on a site than in front of a lens. That is fine, and it is the reason the direction exists. You are not expected to arrive knowing what to do with your hands, your jaw or your weight. I direct all of it, frame by frame, so the finished portrait looks like the person who runs the meeting rather than someone enduring a photograph.

Built to the same standard as the work.

A portrait is a made object, and it can be made well or made carelessly, exactly like everything else your firm puts its name on. Made well means light that is placed rather than found, a lens at a distance that does not distort a face, a background chosen instead of accepted, and enough frames to catch the expression you actually wear when you are listening to someone.

That is also why every session here happens indoors, in a controlled room, rather than out among the work. Weather, harsh sun and a busy background all fight the face, and a portrait that has to sit in a proposal for a long stretch cannot depend on the light being kind that afternoon. I wrote an honest comparison of studio versus outdoor portraits, and for this use the answer is not close.

The other advantage is repeatability. When the background, the light and the framing are fixed, a portrait made now still matches one made for a new partner later. Firms that care about a consistent set of drawings tend to appreciate the same discipline applied to their people.

Where a principal's face shows up.

This is not one photo used in one place. It is a small piece of infrastructure that gets pulled into everything the firm sends out.

• The team page on the firm site, usually next to a portfolio that raises the bar for everything around it.
• Proposals, qualification packages and the leadership section of a pitch that has to look like a firm, not a folder.
• The project sign at the front of a lot, plus permit boards and site hoarding where a face gets printed large.
• Submissions, panel bios, association directories and the profile a prospective client checks the night before a meeting.

Because those uses want different shapes, I deliver crops that fit them rather than one file for you to wrestle with. If the firm needs more than portraits, website and brand imagery is a separate conversation about the wider library. My personal brand photography guide is the place to start if you are weighing whether a headshot alone is enough.

The firm, not just the founder.

The problem tends to surface the moment the principal gets a good portrait and everyone else on the team page looks worse by comparison. The fix is to photograph the group the same way, in the same room, so project managers, designers and superintendents sit together on the page as one firm. The team headshots page covers how a group day is organized.

Sessions are in my private studio in North Naples, off Pine Ridge Road, and principals drive in from Bonita Springs, Estero, Fort Myers, Marco Island and around Southwest Florida. Many people in this field also sit on a board somewhere, and if that is you, the portrait that serves a firm and the one that serves nonprofit leaders are close cousins. We can plan for both in the same sitting.