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Of all the things you can do to help your picture, some simple lighting rules will get you the best results. Most pictures are poorly lit. If you’ve ever had your picture taken professionally, you have noticed that professional photographers make huge investments in lighting equipment.  They have light stands, umbrellas that reflect the light, strobes, and they spend a good amount of time setting up the lighting of any shot. They know what they’re doing, so learn from them.  It’s rare that a pro will ever point a camera with a flash at you and click away. A flash mounted on a camera will only do one thing: blast you head-on with light. It will properly expose the picture, and you’ll see every little pore or wrinkle and all of the blemishes that you might prefer to hide. A flash portrait is ruthless—to the point of being unflattering to any person.
In the real world, we never look like we do in a flash picture. We don’t have red eyes. Natural light creates gentle shadows that help give our face shape and three dimensions. In real life, we look much gentler than in a flash picture, so the challenge is to take a picture without a flash that helps us look like we really do in most situations. This is an article about telling the truth, and flash portraits lie.

To capture the “real” you, turn off the flash, and use the same simple lighting techniques pros use to take great portraits of people. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Position yourself about 4-6 feet from any background, such as a wall, making sure you have enough room in front of you for the camera and some lights.
2. For a headshot, sitting in a chair is best, so find a simple, low-back chair. A kitchen chair works great for this purpose.
3. Position your camera on a tripod or a small table in front of you. The camera should be about 3 feet away from you and at roughly the same level as your head.  This is easy to do when you use a tripod. If you’re placing the camera on a table, you can use a box or even phone books to achieve the correct height.
4. Select two lamps that use incandescent bulbs (regular light bulbs—not fluorescents). Standing lamps work best, but table lamps will also work fine though you may have to have a couple of small tables to elevate them to the correct height. Use a 40 watt bulb in one lamp (your “fill” lamp) and a 100 watt bulb in the other lamp (the main lamp). Remove any lampshades and leave the bulbs uncovered.
5. Position each lamp about 2-3 feet in front of you, each off to your side (think of them as being at 45 degrees from you on each side). If both the bulbs are the same brightness, move one lamp a bit further away than the other. Each bulb should be about the same height as your face or slightly higher. If the bulbs are too high, they will create shadows under your eyes. The goal is to have the 100 watt lamp light your face, and have the 40 watt lamp “fill-in” any shadows. You can keep moving the fill lamp toward you and closer to the camera to soften any shadows.
6. Make adjustments. The only way to effectively determine the lighting is to take a test shot of yourself to see if the lighting is flattering, or if there are any unpleasant or unnatural shadows. Move the lights to create a natural lighting effect. Keep trying. Change the position and the height of the lamps as needed. Sometimes adjusting the height of the lamps can create a more pleasing effect.
7. If the pictures you’re taking using your lights result in a picture that’s too yellow, orange, or blue, be sure that your camera is set to “Auto White Balance.” If the pictures still result in artificial color, try the different white balance settings or even move to a different background since the camera may be making color adjustments for walls or light reflected off of other objects.
8. If your camera has a zoom lens, don’t use the “wide” setting since it may distort your face a bit. It’s better to use a mid-range zoom setting.  You could also take a photo using natural light. If the ambient lighting in your home is pleasing, you can certainly try it first and see the results. Natural lighting or lighting in a home tends to come from overhead, and overhead lighting tends to create shadows under your eyes, your nose, and under your lips. Although you may not notice that so much in everyday life, those shadows do seem exaggerated in a portrait. Shadows tend to add age to any person—it shows the effect of gravity over time on your face. The simple lighting technique described above puts the lights at the same level as your face to eliminate those shadows.

Depending on the time of day and the windows in your home, you can get nice results using natural sunlight. You could position yourself so you’re lit from late afternoon light coming in through a large picture window. The soft, diffused lighting makes for a great effect—but it’s not something that you can count on. You may work during the day or not have a window that lets in enough light.

Your headshot will include a bit of the background. Don’t worry too much about it. It does not need to be well lit, and it will actually look better if it’s a bit out of focus. You’ll want to make sure the background is not too “busy.” Avoid complicated backgrounds, such as bookcases or a wall with paintings or frames. Remember that the picture is of you—not the background.