Making a professional headshot on the fly for Prof. David Wittenberg.
Getting in touch with Prof. David Wittenberg was not an easy task!
Just a day before, my business partner, Nidhi, had mentioned at lunch that she was scheduled to attend a Young FICCI Ladies Organisation - Kolkata workshop on design thinking with Prof. David as the mentor. The workshop was being held at The Salt House. I looked up his profile and guess what caught my eye immediately - his profile photo on LinkedIn. Here was a guy with excellent credentials but I felt his headshot did not do justice to his profile at all.
Prof. David's old profile photo on his LinkedIn profile.
I was unable to get hold of any contact details for Prof. David so, I ended up asking a friend who is a YFLO member and asked her to get me connected with him or his office. Eventually, I was put in touch with Moumita - the Lead for Learning & Consulting Solutions at ISDI. Despite being skeptical about how much time Prof. David would have after his workshop, Moumita was kind enough to bounce my proposal for a headshot session with him. Thankfully he agreed under a condition that he should not be delayed beyond 6:30 pm so he can catch his flight back to Bombay.
To make things easier for Prof. David, I proposed that we would do the headshot session at the restaurant itself. My team and I reached the location well before Prof. David’s workshop concluded. We had all the equipment ready in the corridor outside, ready to move in and set up as soon as David finished his workshop.
I always like to make my subjects comfortable in front of my camera. I had done my share of research on him. Prof. David is an innovation consultant, author, and Professor at ISME (Indian School of Management and Entrepreneurship). He is an exceptionally versatile business leader, fluent in multiple languages and has over 30 years of consulting, training, and management experience.
Luckily, it took next to no time for Prof. David and me to connect. He and I have both spent substantial time in Arizona, and I used that as an icebreaker to get the conversation started. I showed him some of my previous work, explained the process to him, and eventually started guiding him in front of the camera. This is where shooting tethered into CaptureOne Pro always comes in handy. Not only do I have complete control over my workflow, but I can review the images with the client instantly on the fly. The robust RAW processing shows the images as sharp as they get.
Being asked to turn and tilt his head at particular angles; Prof. David started seeing how my on-camera mentoring was helping his headshot get better he relaxed and started trusting my guidance more. Following my instructions to the T, he rocked the headshot session! The headshot session was done in about twenty minutes.
There is never a plan but things fall into place if you are consistent with your approach. There’s a marked difference in the quality of images that Prof. David was using previously and the ones that I made for him. The rushed nature of the shoot did not compromise his schedule or our quality, and the result was this final image! I am glad that I got this chance to upgrade his image.
Prof. David's new professional headshot.