Peter Hurley's Top 5 Tips for Shooting Amazing Portraits & Headshots

Hey guys, I'm Peter Hurley, and I'm a portrait photographer in New York City, and I specialize in headshot photography. So I'm so psyched that Shutterbug asked me to do my top five tips. So here you go. You're gonna get my top five tips for headshots, and they're incredible, and definitely use them in your work. Number one is jawline. Yes, absolutely, jawline, guys. Number one thing, and I got Johanna here, and she's gonna help us out, all right? You don't want any of your people in double chinsville. That's terrible, show them double chinsville. There you go, and chin down slightly, and back further, really miserable. There you go, now jam your forehead out and give me a good one. Chin down slightly, there you go, beautiful. There we go, that's it, guys. Get those jawlines out. So I'm gonna talk Johanna through how I would actually do it with a client. I already got the shots, because she's amazing, but imagine there's a hook in the top of your head that's pulling you up to the ceiling. Stand very straight, right? And then now imagine that there is a string between your nose and the center of my lens, and I'm pulling it tight, like that, exactly, without bringing your shoulders forward. Very key, guys, so that's it, that's tip number one. Number two, what's your best side? Now I gotta figure out what Johanna's best side is. So I'm gonna shoot three shots. I'm gonna shoot her with her nose to her right. Hold that, that's fantastic. Hold that for me. Now go center it for me, straight in, straight in the camera, and hold that for me. And then go nose a little bit this way towards your left shoulder. Fantastic, eyes here, though. There we go. Now I can ascertain which shot I like best, and then I will find her sweet spot. I actually think she's ambifacial. I've photographed her enough to know, ambifacial people, I made it up, I made this word up. It means you can shoot any side of their face. But there is a sweet spot, I know you like the mole. She likes the mole, I like the mole. But I think I've shot every side, and she's great on every side, so you'll see. When you have somebody like this, you just shoot them like crazy. But if you have somebody that has a specific side, or you have a specific side in particular, you gotta shoot your good side. Like, I know this is not my good side, I should be over, I should be over here. This is better, right? I should be like this. But I'm not, because we're shooting, and that's the way it goes, so I'll live. I'm still all right, I got a parental hookup. My parents hooked me up with decent sides. I'm semi-ambifacial. Got it? Good. Number three is confidence comes to the eye, squinching. Third one might be my favorite, guys. This one, the squinch, might be my favorite. Maybe my favorite. Gotta be confident in a camera, at least for me, in my work. So how do you get there? You don't go big eyes, you have a little squinch. So, Johanna, let's imagine that you weren't a seasoned model and you got in front of my camera and you were petrified. What would that look like? Hold that for me, that's it. And now throw a little squinch in with some confidence. Serious on the mouth, but confidence, there you go. Good, chin down, forehead out a little bit. Beautiful. So see the difference, guys? Huge, huge. People that are scared in front of cameras, it doesn't look good. I call it nefa-face, non-existent facial activity. And the eyes get widened. And when we're uncertain as humans, that's what happens. So get your people squinching. I have a video called It's All About the Squinch, so make sure you watch that. Number four is approachability comes from the mouth. So where does this approachability come from? Where do you think it comes from? You know where it comes from? It comes from right here, baby, right from the mouth. If I get serious, is that approachable? But if I add a hint of a smile, perfect. So you start with hints of smiles, unless you can get genuine laughter. You don't want anybody doing that fake, terrible smile that's like, which people do in front of the camera. You know what you do? If they do this, you tell them to shut their mouth until you get them to genuinely laugh and get their smile to come out. Otherwise, tiny smiles for that approachability, that's the key, so let's see. Johanna, jam your forehead out, get real serious, I'll take it, hold it right there. Chin down slightly, chin down slightly, hold that, I'll take it, chin down a little bit more, jam the forehead out, nice and miserable. And now a hint of a smile for me, beautiful. Huge difference, guys, huge, that's huge. Huge. Number five is do not put the camera up too high on your subject because it looks silly. This is crazy. So if you look at my camera, if you look at the way it's set up, I like to be a little bit lower than my subjects so it makes them look powerful. You can see Johanna is very tall, my camera's pointed at her, but I'm pointing it up just a little bit so I'm on a lower angle to give her strength. I want her to look strong and powerful rather than diminished. And if I did something silly, like this, and took a ladder and got up here, moved this light out of the way, and I got up here and I went like this, and I took a picture like this, this would be just silly. Hold it right there, let's chin down a little bit, let's just sit. That's just gonna diminish her, and I hate it. I hate that. Let's get this ladder out of here. All right, so here it is all together. Let me shoot her a little bit and show you how I move and how I do things and how you incorporate everything at once. So Johanna, chin down a little bit. I'm gonna scooch back a minute, hold that. Hold that, get that chin down, get that forehead out. That's it, turn your nose a little bit that way to get that more, I want that side. Turn your body one way or the other, cross your arms a little bit, that's beautiful. Make sure that chin comes out, keep that hint of the smile for me. Jam that forehead out, camera height's good, angle of the face, keep the body there and now work the nostril, there you go, beautiful. Corner of the mouth toward the ear lobes, I'll take it, that gives me the approachability. We got a little squinch going, oh, I'll take the teeth, I'll take them, if you got teeth, I'll take them. You got teeth? Do you have them? Do you have teeth? There you go, that's what I said, guys, if you can get a real smile, you take it. You take the real smiles, all right, beautiful. So anyway, guys, standing up straight, she's got good posture, that's it. So five, just to wrap this up, we got five, we got one, jawline out, two, side of the face, three, squinching the eye for confidence, four, the mouth for approachability and five, keep your camera height low to give them power and not diminish them. And with that, I'm gonna say goodbye and thank you, Johanna, in a three, two, one, shabang! And if you want more tips, go to headshotcrew.com.