What are the best tips for choosing a headshot background?
Discover the best backgrounds that will make you stand out in this guide.
When it comes to professional headshots, the background you choose can have a big impact on the overall look and feel of the photo. Whether you’re taking a headshot for your LinkedIn profile or for your company’s website, it’s important to choose a background that will make you stand out and look professional. In this guide, we’ll explore some of the best backgrounds to consider for your headshot. Whether you’re considering professional headshot services or DIY headshot choosing the right background is an important element to consider.
What are the best backgrounds for professional headshots?
There are many options for headshot backgrounds.
The ones we focus on for this guide are:
- studio
- outdoor
- on-site
- creating backgrounds to match exsisting headshots
Pro tip: Know what your headshot will be used for before you decide on the look you want.
Studio background options can provide exactly what you are looking for with a clean professional classic look or leave you wanting more elements like the outdoor or office environment.
In our studio we photograph with a white background for most of our headshots. Depending on the client’s needs, we can desaturate the background, add a gradient, or change the color completely. We offer a wide range of studio backgrounds: office set up (pictured below), white backdrop, gray backdrop, burnt orange backdrop and a black textured wall backdrop. View our studio background examples for more.
Studio backgrounds can provide a solid-color for your professional headshots. For corporate photos the most commonly used color are shades of gray. Shades of gray are clean, classic and suitable for most industries.
The best part about making headshots outdoors are the textures, landscapes, architecture, colors and city environments that nature and man has provided. Some clients want a mix of architecture and foliage while others want garden elements or the textures of a city.
We photograph our clients in public parks, outdoor spaces near offices or public buildings, city streets, bodies of water, public and private landscaping areas and any other natural environment that utilities the outdoors.
When we photograph on site we usually use natural light as our light source. Visit Two Types of Light for more.
New headshot for new hire Aminata with the Portland Housing Developement Center. We use the city streets in front of the main office for each new hire to provide consistant headshots that give an urban feel. The outdoor backdrop aligns with the client’s target community.
We photographed Josie at an outdoor location in St. Johns in Portland, Oregon. The background of her headshots were more environmental and added to her brand with the changing colors, textures and even wildlife!
On-Site Headshot Backgrounds
Client’s offices, private spaces and indoor environments provide the foundation for on-site, or also known as on-location headshots.
These headshots are using exisiting spaces or backdrops for the background of the headshot. Sometimes the client wants their office environment to be the color palette and texture of the background while others provide a white wall to take the classic white backdrop background for their headshots.
Pro Tip: Photographing on-site can be more efficient for companies with larger teams or teams with limited available time.
For our client Jenni Leasia’s design firm we photographed on-location at their office using the color and textures of their designed space. We utilitized the natural light coming from the large windows on one part of the space. This provides a cusom lighting and background combo for the client.
For PEC’s new company headshots we photographed on site with a single light strobe set up as the main source of light in addition to the natural light fill supplied from the outdoor setting through the windows. We used the client’s headquarters and office space as the two locations for the team headshots.
Matching Existing Headshot Backgrounds
To match the headshots we made for the WPI Builds at their Portland office we used the same lighting set up and a neutral gray or white background on-site at their Eugene office.
We used a conference room wall to make these headshots and the same two light set up we used in the Portland office. The light source was a 3 ft octabank modifier on a Profoto B10 strobe head, our second Profoto B10 strobe head was used to light the background. We had the same modifier bounce cards in the same place to match the headshots we already made. Once the client made the selections we mad the background colors all match.
For additional questions about headshots and photography sessions, visit our FAQ or view our guide to preparing for your headshot session.
