How to Pick Your Final Headshot - When You Can't Decide
You made it through the session. You felt good about it. Your photographer sends over the gallery and then you spend the next three days staring at photos of your own face, completely unable to make a decision.
It's one of the most common things I hear from clients. And it makes total sense. Looking at dozens of photos of yourself is an uncomfortable, strange experience. Your brain starts doing weird things.
Here's how to get out of your own way and actually pick the right shot.
Look for Connection, Not Perfection
The photo you're looking for is not the most technically flawless one. It's the one where something in your eyes is actually alive. That slight difference between a flat expression and one that feels present — that's what everyone else will notice before they notice anything else.
Stop looking for the photo where your hair is perfect. Start looking for the photo where you look like someone worth talking to.
Shrink the Images Down
This is a trick that changes everything. When you're scrolling through a full size gallery, every little thing gets magnified. A slight asymmetry. A wrinkle. The way you're holding your mouth.
Shrink the images to thumbnail size or step back from your screen. Suddenly the ones that really work become obvious. The energy comes through. The weak ones disappear. Your headshot will almost always be seen at a small size first anyway, so this is actually how you should be evaluating it.
Don't Ask Everyone You Know
Showing your gallery to your partner, your mom, your three closest colleagues, and your college roommate is a guaranteed way to end up more confused than when you started. Everyone has different taste, different biases, and different opinions about what you should look like.
Ask one person whose professional judgment you trust. Just one. And weight their opinion against your own gut, not against a committee vote.
Stop Fixating on the Things Only You Notice
Here's something I've learned after thousands of sessions: the things clients hate most about their own photos are almost never the things anyone else sees. The slight tilt of the head. The way one eye looks. The thing your face does when you smile.
Other people are not looking at you with the same critical lens you're using on yourself. They're looking for warmth, approachability, credibility. Lead with that.
Trust Your First Instinct…Mostly
Before the second guessing sets in, there's usually one photo that makes you think that's the one. Write it down. Or favorite it. Then go through the whole gallery. More often than not, you'll come back to that first image.
Your gut often gets it right before your brain gets involved.
When You're Still Stuck
If you've narrowed it down to two or three and genuinely cannot choose, that's actually a good problem to have. Send them to me. That's part of the process. I look at these images differently than you do and I can usually tell you pretty quickly which one is going to do the most work for you.
The goal isn't a perfect photo. It's the right photo. There's a difference.