What does a headshot photographer actually do? (And what you're paying for)

What a headshot is (and what it isn't)

A headshot is a tightly framed photograph of your face and shoulders, designed to work at small sizes in professional contexts. LinkedIn thumbnails, CV attachments, company websites, email signatures, speaker profiles, press kits.

The goal isn't to make you look glamorous. It's to make you look like yourself on a good day: recognisable, approachable, competent. When someone meets you after seeing your headshot, they shouldn't be surprised by what you look like. If they are, the headshot failed.

A headshot is not a portrait, though the two overlap. A portrait can include your whole body, a location, movement, mood. A headshot is deliberately constrained: face, shoulders, clean background, direct eye contact. That constraint is what makes it useful. It strips away everything except the person.

What happens before the session

The consultation. Every headshot session I do starts with a free conversation. I ask what the images are for, where they'll be used, and whether there's a company style guide or colour scheme to work with. This takes about fifteen minutes and determines everything that follows: background colour, lighting approach, wardrobe advice, and how many different setups we'll do.

For corporate batch sessions where I'm photographing a whole team, the consultation includes coordinating with whoever is organising the shoot — usually an office manager or HR contact. We align on scheduling (how many people, how many minutes each), whether there's a consistent background or wardrobe requirement, and logistics like where in the office I can set up.

Wardrobe guidance. I tell every client the same thing: solid colours, navy or grey or white, collared shirt or blazer if you have one. Avoid large logos, busy patterns, and neon. At thumbnail size on LinkedIn, contrast between your face and your clothing matters more than fashion.

Most clients send me a photo of their outfit options the day before. It takes me two minutes to reply with a recommendation. This prevents the most common headshot problem: showing up in something that doesn't work and spending the first fifteen minutes of the session second-guessing your shirt.

What happens during the session

The actual shooting portion of a headshot session takes ten to twenty minutes for an individual. Here's what I'm doing during that time:

Setting up the light. Even for natural light headshots (near a window, outdoors in open shade), I'm choosing and positioning the light source deliberately. For studio headshots, I'm setting up one to three lights, testing exposure, and adjusting modifiers. The lighting setup is what separates a professional headshot from a phone selfie in front of a white wall. It controls how your skin looks, where the shadows fall, and whether the image reads as clean or harsh.

Reading your face. Everyone's face has a better side, a natural head tilt, an angle where their jaw looks defined and their eyes look engaged. I'm looking for these in the first two or three frames. Most people don't know what their good angle is. That's my job.

Keeping you relaxed. The biggest enemy of a good headshot is tension. Tight shoulders, clenched jaw, frozen smile. I talk through the whole session — not about photography, just about whatever keeps you from thinking about the camera. The frames where you're mid-sentence or laughing at something I said are usually the best ones.

Taking more frames than you'd expect. A typical headshot session produces 50 to 100 frames. I'm adjusting micro-expressions, slight angle changes, and lighting tweaks across those frames. The difference between a headshot that works and one that doesn't is often a two-millimetre head turn or the moment between a fake smile and a real one.

What happens after the session

This is where most of the time goes, and it's the part clients never see.

Culling. I go through all 50 to 100 frames and select the strongest three to five. Selection is about consistency of expression, technical quality (sharpness, exposure, no blinking), and which images best represent the person. This takes longer than the shooting itself.

Editing. Each selected image gets colour correction, exposure adjustment, white balance fine-tuning, and skin retouching. Retouching for headshots means evening out temporary blemishes, reducing under-eye shadows, and ensuring skin tones look natural. I don't reshape faces, smooth away all texture, or make people look ten years younger. That kind of heavy retouching creates the exact problem a headshot is supposed to prevent: people not recognising you when they meet you.

Delivery. The finished images go into a private online gallery. You browse, select your favourites, and download high-resolution files ready for both print and web. For corporate batch sessions, I can deliver individual galleries to each team member or a single gallery to the organiser.

Total time per headshot, honestly calculated: 10–20 minutes shooting + 15 minutes culling and selection + 15–20 minutes editing per final image + gallery setup and delivery. For three to five delivered images, that's roughly two to three hours of total work per individual session, not counting the consultation.

Why headshot prices vary so much

In Stockholm, you can get a headshot for 500 SEK or 5,000 SEK. The difference isn't the ten minutes of shooting. It's everything surrounding it.

Equipment. A professional camera body, portrait lens, and lighting kit costs 50,000 to 150,000 SEK. That gear gets amortised across sessions. Cheaper photographers may shoot on consumer equipment, which limits their ability to control light and deliver consistent quality.

Editing quality. The gap between a lightly processed headshot and a properly edited one is visible at any size. Colour accuracy, skin tone consistency, background cleanliness; these details matter especially when headshots sit side by side on a company website.

Experience reading faces. This sounds intangible, but it's the real differentiator. A photographer with 500 sessions behind them will find your best angle in three frames. Someone newer might take thirty frames and still not land on it. The output looks different even when the equipment is identical.

Consistency across a team. For corporate batch sessions, maintaining identical exposure, colour temperature, and framing across eight or twenty people is technically demanding. It requires controlled lighting, a fixed setup, and disciplined editing. This is where cheap headshots fall apart, each person looks like they were photographed on a different day.

What I charge

Individual headshot session (1 hour): 1,500 SEK excluding VAT. Includes 3–5 edited images, free consultation, private gallery, delivery in 3–4 days.

Group headshot session (1 hour): 2,000 SEK excluding VAT. Works for two to three people in the same session, or small teams cycling through a consistent setup.

Studio add-on: 500 SEK per hour for the studio space.

Corporate batch sessions (6+ people): quoted individually. I set up a portable studio at your office, each person takes about five to ten minutes, and I deliver consistent headshots across the full team. Contact me for exact pricing based on team size.

On-site setup for corporate headshots can be combined with event coverage if you have a company event the same day.