Today’s guest is Rob Tannenbaum a New York City Headshot and Corporate Event Photographer. A master photographer with more than 15 years of professional shooting experience, today we are going to talk about the world of headshot photography and how you can get started

Become A Premium Member to access to more in-depth questions that help move you forward!

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How Rob got his start in Photography

• How studying for his Masters in Communication helped Rob become the photographer he is today

• Where Rob struggled most to learn photography and how he overcame it

• What is a headshot

• Who gets headshots and what’s the point of a headshot

• How many photos Rob takes and delivers from each session

• The importance of micro-adjustments when posing

• How to get started with lighting headshots

• How to take acceptable headshots even if you’re using entry-level gear

• Some signs of what makes an amateur headshot

Premium Members Also Learn:

• How to price headshots

• How Rob handles retouching

• How other photographers complicate the process

• And what questions to ask your clients to get the best results

Resources:

• New York Headshot Photographer Rob Tennenbaum’s website

Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!

Full Episode Transcription:

Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.

Raymond: 00:00:00 Welcome to the beginner photography podcast. Today we're talking headshots. So let's get into it. Intro: 00:00:08 Welcome to the beginner photography podcast, a weekly podcast for those who believe that moments matter most and that a beautiful photo is more than just a sum of its settings, a show for those who want to do more with the gear they have to take better photos today. And now your host Raymond Hatfield. Raymond: 00:00:26 Well, hello. Welcome everyone. I am Raymond, your host. And today we have an interview that I really hope will inspire you to try something new. So I'm really excited to get into that. But first it's shout out time. This week's listener shadow goes to the room for leaving a five star iTunes review where they said this podcast, it gives me inspiration to shoot better photos, try different styles, and I truly enjoy the interviews with all different photographers. Well, the room, I need to know what your actual name is. That's just your your iTunes username. But I need to know your actual name so that I can give you a proper thank you. So let me know who you are. And I'm so happy that you are trying different styles of photography based on what you hear from the guests. I promise you that, you know, the, the, the more that you try new things, the better overall and well equipped of a photographer that you will be.

Raymond: 00:01:27 So keep it up, keep up the great work and thank you again for your review as reviews are the single easiest way to show your support for the show. And I cherish every single one of them. So this week I chat with New York city based headshot photographer Rob Tennenbaum about his work shooting head shots. We get into a lot in this interview honestly and I hope that you know, when not only show you a new way of thinking about photography, but also inspire you to get out and just try something new. That may have sounded a little cryptic, but I think after the interview you will you will, you will understand. But as always, I do save a portion of the interview that is focused on making money with your camera, just for premium members. So this week premium members will learn how to price your headshots since there is often multiple people getting individual headshots taken in a single session, how Rob handles retouching, how other photographers seem to complicate the process for their clients and what questions to ask your clients before the shoot to ensure that they love their photos.

Raymond: 00:02:45 Now on top of that, all this week in the premium members Facebook group, I am sharing my five days to picture perfect pricing course where I walk you through how to accurately price yourself for your market, for your location and to ensure that you make a profit. And don't just, you know, work yourself broke like so many inexperienced photographers. So normally this course sells for $67 but now it is free for premium members. So become a premium member today by hitting over to beginner photography, podcast.com and clicking the premium membership button at the top of the page to join now. So that's it. Let's go ahead and get on into today's interview. Raymond: 00:03:27 Today's guest is Rob Tennenbaum, a master photographer with more than 15 years of shooting experience today. I'm so excited for this. We're going to be talking all about the world of headshot photography and how we can get started. Rob, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I am. I'm so excited to have you here today.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:03:48 Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Raymond: 00:03:50 I am really excited about this because as we just talked about before, I press the record button. I've never interviewed a headshot photographer and to tell you the truth, I thought about it. I think I've only tried headshots once. No, I know that. I've only tried headshots and it was a mess. I've thought, I've thought to myself, I've shot weddings. I can do a headshot. This is going to be easy. It was a wreck. It was an absolute wreck. There's so much more that goes into headshots that then I think most people think really goes into head shots. A lot of it is, it's emotion and lighting is so important, but before we get into kind of the technical skills of headshots and why they're so important, can you share with me and the listeners how you got your start in photography? Rob Tennenbaum: 00:04:36 Oh gosh. My earliest memories of photography are my cousins, my older cousins coming to visit, they lived in Massachusetts. They come down and visit and they'd always, they'd be there, was competitive about everything, but they all had cameras and they were trying to out shoot each other. And this is back in the film days. So rarely would I ever see the results, but they just seem to be having so much fun with their cameras and yeah, basically trying to outdo each other. I kind of, that was my first spark. It just seemed like it was fun. And so my parents got me my first camera and it was a one 10 camera was a teeny little negative and, and it was like junk at uni, your dance, the film, click chunk. And w the results were magic to me. It was not the best quality in the world, but and I didn't know what I was doing. I mean, it was an automatic camera, but just seeing results, you know, at that point it was bring the film to the store, wait for a few days for it to be developed. Then you'd get back your prints and not everyone was exposed correctly, but the ones that were, it was magic to me. It still is. Even digital photography is still magic.

Raymond: 00:05:44 So you were, you were a child at this time. This was a, these cousins were older than you?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:05:48 Yeah, I think I was maybe nine, eight or nine when it kind of sparked in me. And not, I carried a camera with me everywhere and not that even at that point had dreams of being a professional photographer. But I think when the question came up

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:06:07 As I got older, what are you going to do in a few years? What do you, what's your career going to be? Sometimes I kept it to myself. Sometimes I told people I really liked photography when I got to college. Finally I took some serious courses and it just all clicked. I was shooting, you know, black and white for class. But they made you try everything, photograph still life photograph people go out and just shoot, found stuff, anything that looks interesting, look for the light. And it just never stopped being interesting to me. Being in the dark room printing and developing your own film. I mean, again, it's all, it's like a, I keep coming back to the word magic. To me it is. I mean, this is obviously a science behind it. As you get more into it, you learn the science behind it, but there'll always be art and magic to it. No matter, no matter what stage are whether you just starting or, you know, doing it for years.

Raymond: 00:07:04 Yeah. I I'm interested though why you felt like you had to hide that you wanted to be a photographer.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:07:12 Oh good. I didn't know anything about it. You know, you don't want to claim, you know, what's, what's your what's your reason for wanting to become a photographer or what makes you think you can be a photographer and just like any field before you actually have any real knowledge of it, it's just your passion. It's just your interest, it's just your fascination with it. So and you know, not knowing there's no, there's books about photography, there's no book that can tell you here's day one and here's day 360, you're going to be at that point. So the only thing that you can rely on is your passion and Mmm. And, and and just continually doing what it is you love until at some point you look back and you say, my God, I'm actually, you know, like I'm doing this.

Raymond: 00:08:05 So from nine, so let's say 18, you know, before you go off to college, would you say looking back that you took more photos than the average kid? Or was it just that the photos that you did take meant something to you more? What do you think, what was that like?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:08:27 I, I'm, I'm fortunate that my parents didn't throw out my negatives or to throw out my prints and stuff. And once that you still have them, not all, but I have a lot and I have a lot from college as well. But yeah, I every, like now that I have my own kids and they're curious to know what I do for a living and and I'll dig out my pictures from when I was their age and show them, you know, what, what I was capable of at the time and why I liked particular pictures and what I was, you know, what I was experiencing. And part of it, just trying to compare their experiences, you know, what life is like for them. And in 2019 compared to what life was like back in 1979 which blows my mind.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:09:14 And, but, and then I look at them and you, obviously there's nostalgia, but there's also like, you know, I look at it from a, somebody who's been shooting for, I mean, you said 15 years. I've been shooting for 25 years professionally, you know, making my full time living for more than almost 15 years. But yeah. And I'm just happy. I'm very proud of that nine year old boy who did what he did. And again, didn't carry my camera everywhere, but it was important to me. I was the family photographer when we went on vacations. You know, I made sure to capture moments. It wasn't until later when I got to college that I went off in the journalism side of things and and, and did photojournalism, Oh, journalism, newspaper, photography went away to graduate school for that as well. Mmm.

Raymond: 00:10:05 So then let me, let me ask right there. Cause when, when you had decided to go to college and you had made that decision, I'm gonna study photography I didn't go that route. So is it that you had to declare, you know, I want to study photojournalism because earlier you mentioned, you know, some still lives in black and white stuff. Did they give you some, some, some freedom to test out what you wanted and then focus on that specific thing? Or did you have to make that declaration in the beginning? Rob Tennenbaum: 00:10:34 Well, I went to a liberal arts school where they had all sorts of different specialties you could major in. There was no photography major. I didn't go to a photography school. I went to a liberal arts school where I definitely wanted to study journalism. And, and photography just seemed like this natural fit for me. Telling a story. And so start with a brain glitch. I'm trying to think back that far. And there was a, it was, luckily it was, we had really good professors. There's only a couple of them and they let you pursue what you wanted. You had to do the required assignments, but they let you pursue the particular Avenue you wanted to. So they said at the end of the year, do this new project that you want to do. Side tended towards the storytelling, the photojournalism style photography where some people may have done still life or whatever, as long as they were looking for somebody at the end of the year to be technically proficient, you know, understand composition that kind of thing.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:11:43 So there was a lot of freedom and I, the one thing that was really the clincher for me was they did bring in an adjunct professor and this woman was a photojournalist and her name was Sue Dooley. And she just happened just to happen to be the wife of the director of photography for Newsday, which is the newspaper on long Island at the time, had a circulation of, this was the fifth or sixth biggest newspaper in the country. So I love what she did. She appreciated what I did, my enthusiasm and one thing led to another. I got the internship at news day and that was it. From that point on, my career kind of just went from there. So don't, it's not necessarily what you study, it's what you pay attention to who you surround yourself with. Again, if that woman had never shown up, maybe I would still be where I am. But, you know, I, I, I don't burn bridges and I try to learn from everybody I need. You know, some people you learn a little bit from and some people you learn a lot from. So my professors at the school were great. And they know, they knew how much to push you. They knew how much to lay off. And

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:12:56 And they could tell when you were putting in an effort. So, and then that's the important thing. You know, it's not enough that you get a grade. It's not that you earned your grade. So

Raymond: 00:13:06 Yeah. And that's, that's something that I, that I always wondered, especially now maybe just cause I'm younger, but it's you know, there's, there's the shift towards kind of moving away from formal education, you know, specifically college, you know, maybe not so much like a trade school. I, I I had went to film school so it was just all about film for cinematography. So I didn't go to a formal four year college. But the people who I've talked to who have gone to that four year college praise, you know, have so much praise for it. Do you think that having that formal education, that structure really helped, or I guess how did it help form you into the photographer that you are today? Rob Tennenbaum: 00:13:48 Yeah, no, I, again, it's the passion for your college. I could've gone to Maryland. I went to this school called Hofstra. It's on here on the long Island. Actually. I ended up settling about 15 minutes away from it. I applied to a number of different college. I didn't know what I wanted when I went to college. So for your college is great if you show up, work hard, play hard and use the degree that your parents stirred all the loans paid for. I mean but again, Pat, whether you're an accountant or a photographer or what, or, you know, be passionate about it that's all I can say. I mean, I can, some people just took it as an easy a or an easy B or whatever. They just didn't have, you know, I, I know those people, they came and went.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:14:35 But it was, it was the [inaudible] the passion of the people. It was just a few of us who really took it seriously. We had again, had good teachers before your degree kept me. You know, I, I was able to do things like the journalism side of things, which at the time was more important to me or as important. But an education is important. I understand what you're saying about not being, there's a lot of people that don't go for the formal education anymore. You know, some people rely on YouTube videos to give, get everything want and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. As long as the person presenting the information to you is presenting the correct information cause there's a million different ways of doing things. But there's always a wrong way of doing things in the right way of doing things.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:15:28 And, and one of the best things about the four year education or getting [inaudible] taught in person is the in person isn't having that instant feedback. And so again, so not to jump too far forward, but when you become a professional, you know, unless you surround yourself with other working photographers, it's hard to get that feedback that you'd necessarily would get. So, so I think everybody, or at least the photographers I do know, you know, we kind of plateau at some point. We're kind of like, we want to break into something new and all of a sudden we're in that we become beginners again, like as still photographers a few years ago, wanting to get into more video because digital SLRs allow you to shoot video also. And it was the most painful that made me because I was getting older and I wasn't retaining information as much.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:16:12 But I mean it was, it was uncomfortable, but you know, I plow through because, you know, I was passionate about it. So same thing with learning photography. I can still remember losing whole rolls of film and just my ruining it would just kill me. Absolutely killing me, ruining the whole rolls of film. You just mean the way that it was shot or I didn't have the settings correct on the camera and my daughter's view is completely off. And this is the days where you couldn't Chimp on the back of your camera. So, so, you know, it was press and pray. I mean, you know, you think you got it right, you had your your light meter and you know, this is black and white. It was a lot more forgiving because, you know, it was all a matter of intensity of light. It wasn't about color, temperature or anything like that, you know, it was either, you know, your shadows were too dark or you're bright for too bright.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:17:06 But but you know, there were times where I had did a bone head move. I mean there was one of my first assignments for Newsday when I worked there as an intern. It was one of my greatest lessons. One of the editors sent me out to photograph, send out a beautiful photograph, a politician, and the guy had, you know, was busy and, and and I was hired as a photography intern, but I, by no means was I ready for like prime time. I was flying by the seat of my pants. I was still learning as I was going. And I show up, I photograph the guy. I thought that went pretty well. And then when I get back to the office, like develop the film, I show it to the editor and he's like, why is this in black and white shooting a color at that point he's like, we need color, we can't, you know.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:17:53 So after some uncomfortable silence, you know, he said, I'm going to call this guy back and you're going to go back there and you're going to reshoot this thing and you're going to apologize. Profuse few for Fuseli for wasting this man's time. And what a great lesson it was. I mean, just, you got to get things wrong in order to get them right sometimes. You know, it was again, another uncomfortable situation, but I'd never made that mistake again at that point. It's like showing up with a digital camera now, not having a, a card green card in the camera. So it happens. That's the beginning.

Raymond: 00:18:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I know, I kinda, I kinda wanna I kinda wanna explore it a little bit more. That idea of, you know, of shooting and you know, finding out that your whole role is wasted or going back to those days where you had just at one 10, it's all automatic at some point you move past automatic and you start learning the technicals of photography when it came to that. Was there, was there anything that you remember being difficult for you to understand from the technical aspect of photography?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:18:57 Yeah. it's like juggling and trying to ride a unicycle when you're first starting out. I mean, you know, you're dealing with if you're dealing, if you're in a situation, a studio, say a very controlled environment and you have studio lights or whatever light source are using, and it's just a constant light, it's not a flash. You're not worried about the intensity going up or down. That's a safe environment to learn. It's when you start, you know, so then you can adjust your shutter speed and, and your, and your aperture and you can play around with it and see the results. But when you're, when you're outside and suddenly the clouds are coming in and out and or the subject is moving or you know, the VR, when the variables start to happen, everything you learned in the studio, it really just goes out the window.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:19:54 And those are my earliest memories. It was trying to create a catalog in my mind of here's the situation, what do I do? That's when you start moving into I think that the first thing you start moving into is shutter priority or aperture priority starts to try to limit the mistakes that can be made. The cameras are great, they're very intelligent. But when you start to think, you know, the situation calls for shutter priority or this situation calls for aperture priority, then you start moving away from letting the camera make all that, all the decisions. And that's an important place to be because then now you're saying, well, I know I wanted a shallow depth of field, so I shot at say two eight on this. I'm still life, but I'm getting all this light that's like yellow in from the window and the light I'm using in my studio is getting a blue cast.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:20:52 How am I going to change that? So possibly is the shutter. If I speed up the shutter, it'll kill some of that light coming in from this source. And you start to, you know, put those things together. And especially with color photography or when you're shooting sports and you're like, you know, everyone's blurred. You know, why is there someone's blur? So you put it into shutter priority and you'd make sure that you're always shooting in a very fast shutter speed to freeze the motion if that's the look you're going for. And then you decide what, you know, aperture, if you put in shutter priority, then the aperture, the camera's going to figure it out, the Avature for you. And you can learn that way. And again, when we were starting out with film, if you didn't re write, you know, keep a diary of every exposure that you made, which was nearly impossible when you're out in the field. Just doing stuff. If you were doing still life, absolutely a great way to learn what shutter, what aperture combination makes what result. But now with digital, you have no excuse not to pay attention to what the settings are. They're right there in your, your, your final information. When you bring it into whatever it is. Light room, bridge, photo mechanic, it's all there. You can learn a lot faster if you, it's, it's, it's right in front of you.

Raymond: 00:22:10 It's a, it's funny that you say that this, this past year I I mean I, I started a photography by shooting film. I went to film school and I shot a video using film. But this year I really had more of an interest back into film, bought myself a medium format camera you know, started using my light meter a lot more than I had in the past, you know, 12 years I suppose. But even still, I find that as a struggle because I've become so used to taking a photo, coming back, having the settings right there that if something was wrong, I knew I knew exactly what I needed to do to fix it. But now shooting on film, there's no, there's no data, there's no data except for just the light. And you look at the photo and you think, I wish I remembered what my shutter speed here was because I would have loved to have got more you know, deep or more, more, more color saturation in the sky right there and bring that down.

Raymond: 00:23:01 That's that's funny. I have a whole notebook around here that was just full of, and then of course I screwed it up because I have two different backs on my, on my camera that I was switching between stocks. And then, so I'd write down like first frame is this, I can frame this, this, I screwed up the whole thing. Totally my fault. Oh, well, I mean, luckily it wasn't like commissioned or anything like that, but the whole learning experience part of that, I wouldn't say that it went out the window because now I know how to better document my photos,

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:23:28 Mistakes. They're great ways to learn, a very expensive way. But yes.

Raymond: 00:23:35 Yeah. So let's let's talk about head shots. Where did, where did head shots come into this whole equation? You started off in photojournalism, you went that route today, you're shooting a lot of head shots.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:23:46 Where did that come from? College photographed a lot of everything. By no means did I make any decisions at that point other than the journalism side of things. And then when I, when I got into journalism again, shooting a lot of everything, but you're on your own, you're getting feedback that if you didn't do it right, they're never going to send you out for another assignment, so you better get it right. And working for a newspaper. I w just as a little aside, very sad that that industry is suffering as much as it is, it's great training ground for anybody who has a chance to become a photographer for a newspaper. Because one day you're shooting food, the next day you're shooting in the studio, the next day you're shooting a fire. The next day you're shooting sports. Next. You know, it is the best training ground ever for a photographer.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:24:37 And, but one of the things you end up shooting a lot of his head shots, you know, people, people holding their food, people behind their desk, people in front of the computer. And if you don't try to make it a little bit more than just a headshot, you go crazy. You have to, it kind of forces you to rethink everything. Every time you go do it, you can't treat it as the same thing over and over again. So the most difficult thing I think I dealt with was photographing people because at that point, not being as experienced you're trying to maintain the conversation, put the subject at ease and then not look like you have no idea what you're doing with your equipment. So I'm, so I made it a priority to be a better people photographer, not even portrait photographer, but just, you know, whether it is somebody in their environment, you're documenting them doing whatever it is they do or you're actually, your sole purpose is to have that person look into the lens and you're trying to capture a little bit of who they are.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:25:50 You want to get past, I wanted to get past the tech, the, the technical part of it, and just literally be having a conversation with somebody and just happen to be taking pictures. I want that. That's the environment that works the best for me. I'm not a very controlling person. I still look for moments when I photograph people. But when I started out, it was like a hold on a second look in the camera or I'm getting people to pose or, you know, it was a struggle, but it took a lot of stuff that didn't look all that great when I look back on it to get me to where I am now. But again, it was working at the newspaper allowed me a lot of Mmm. Opportunity to, to shoot. So I know a lot of people don't have that opportunity, so my only suggestion is just grab your neighbors, grab your friends, grab your pets, grab mannequins, grab, you know, whatever it is and [inaudible] play with it. Yeah. Ask people to pose to turn. And you know, part of it's the light part of it's the subject. I'm, I'm convinced that anybody and everybody can be photographed. Well. it just comes down to making them comfortable and, and making sure the lights flattering for their particular body type. And yeah,

Raymond: 00:27:23 That was, that was a great, I think that's definitely gonna be one of the memorable quotes from this episode. And anybody can be photographed. Well, I love that. That's, that's, that's hard for a lot of new photographers to to get their head around because I think, I think as you, as you start in photography, you feel like, Oh, I have an understanding of how this camera works. But when you get a person in front of it, it's not the same relationship that you have with the camera. And it's very easy to take bad photos of people. And I'm proof of that. I have plenty of bad photos of people that I've taken and it's very easy to just say, Oh, I don't like, I don't like portraits. I don't like shooting portraits, you know, I just, I just stick to landscapes. Right, right.

Raymond: 00:28:01 Yeah, that's very interesting. I'm going to have to, I feel like that's something that I'm going to think about for awhile here. So thank you for sharing that. When it comes to a head shots, when I, when I think of headshots I've never had a head shot taken aside from just like a friend, you know, I needed, I needed a photo for something. You know, so I think I had shot, I think of a maybe a social media profile picture or you know, LinkedIn something professional, businessy, all of these things. The way that I see it, it's just, it's just one, it's just one photo. So when you go and you do like a head headshot session, when you're going in for head shots for somebody, is that the goal to get that one photo that they're going to want in, in order to deliver

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:28:47 A majority of the time? Yeah. you definitely want to come away with you know, one good photo that represents somebody. They want to be seen. Linkedin or you know, on a company's internal website, that kind of thing. It shows up in there on their, their signature at the bottom of their emails. But once in a while, if you, I've been fortunate enough to move beyond that and companies like Pricewaterhouse Citibank, American express and I've, there's some of the clients I do work for where, you know, we have this executive who was just promoted. We need a new head portrait, not, not headshot but portrait. And when you, and I try to make sure that people understand the difference cause headshot really is, it comes from the head and shoulders, a head shot. But when you move into the area of portraiture you are, you could still be shooting a head and shoulders of the person, but you're really trying to do something more than just flat light. Here's the person you want to bring a little bit more to the, the, the, the composition whether it's how you light the person how far you back away from them and include the environment. And that's more portrait photography. It's not just one light or two lights, sometimes it's, you know, four or five lights. So the question again was

Raymond: 00:30:13 The question again was you know, is it that one photo or how much of a variety is it that you're trying to shoot?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:30:23 It's funny, I mean, whether, whether it's somebody who's, you know, the office secretary or the, or the CEO, everyone kind of has to go through the same poses. So I shoot, you know, it's, it's something that's like almost automatic at this point. I can look at somebody and this is something that you just develop over time doing this over and over again. You look at somebody and you can tell their comfort level. You can tell, you know, their body type their ability to hold a pose, their ability to smile. You can tell that that's part of what moving beyond the technical and just having a conversation with somebody, I can pretty much tell within the first 30 seconds to a minute how I'm going to handle this individual. Some people I'm done. I'm done in two minutes. I'm not going to get anything more out of them.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:31:13 They're not happy to be there. You know, they're just doing this because they have to. That's, that's one kind of client. And then you have the person who thinks they're a model and it gives you way more than you need and you have to kind of bring them back down earth and talk quieter. Get them to pay attention, get out of their own heads of what they think that they're gonna look like. And then you have people that are just naturals and they're very good listeners and, and, and they're gonna do exactly what you asked. And also a very quick shoot. Mmm. And then you have people who Mmm, are difficult. And the first thing you say when they walk in the room is, I don't photograph well. I hate having my picture taken. And it happens and it's okay. And I, it makes me smile because I'm going to get your picture anyway and I'm going to do my job. If you don't do your half of the bargain, you're going to be the one who ended up with a bad picture because of you. So I make it light. You know, I make it as light as possible and some people can't be moved. They can't be meant to smile, they don't want to offer a smile. And not that it necessarily has to be a smile photo. But as soon as you have somebody smiling, they're going to, they're going to be my partner. And what's going on?

Raymond: 00:32:30 How many photos would you say that you take during a traditional headshot session?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:32:35 So here's the funny thing. When you're photographing 50 people in an office, you've got a limited number of time. So again, having that experience with shooting people, knowing are you seeing a person, you know what you're going to get out of them, you still make a move pretty quickly. You know, I always start straight on and we're talking just head and shoulders here and then, you know, then you do certain things on the left shoulder and then you do certain things on the right shoulder. And then it's just a matter of you know, bring your chin more towards camera, bring your chin, you know, further from camera and give me a little tilt. And, but I was, you know, I'm always coaching people along the way and making sure that I try not to keep both hands on the camera, actually try to shoot with one hand so they can see my mouth while I'm talking and I'm smiling the entire time. And it keeps people focused outside themselves.

Raymond: 00:33:21 So that to me sounds more like, like, it's like, it's a like a posing thing right there. Once you get the shot, there's no need to take more, just move on to the next sort of pose. So I'm assuming two dozen photos per person. Okay.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:33:38 That's what we're getting. But yes, I mean very rarely. I mean, there are times when I don't, you know, literally I'm somebody who has me come in to photograph their entire office and you can shoot 20 frames. You can see 50 frames, but I want to make, I want to see 10 frames. I don't have to cut down to, you know, 20 frames. I don't have to cut down to 20 a to 10. So, and again, it comes with experience. It comes with having done something over and over again a lot of times. Mmm. And you have to be very conscious about it. You know, you could easily shoot 50 frames in the same amount of times you shoot 10 frames. Sure you're going to, but you're going to have a person who's blinking in like rubbing there. But, but on a similar note, I can be brought in to just photograph one executive and still shoot just 10 to 25 frames.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:34:29 One reason is I don't want to keep them from what they're doing cause they're busy. So it more of a mental prep ahead of time. If I can do a site visit I do a site visit ahead of time. I try to get as much advanced knowledge what they like, what they don't like. When you're dealing with their executive assistants. They're pretty good about filling you in on personality thing. So I can kind of mentally prep, prep myself for that. The other side of the things that is back to shooting 50 people in an office, nobody has the luxury of time. Nobody has the luxury of giving it all you hope that people show up with their makeup on, you know and, and a good attitude. And so again, it's not quantity, it's quality. When you're photographing your friends, family, pets, whatever, then that's, that's the time you get to learn.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:35:24 That's when you can, you have the luxury of time and examining everything you're doing. When you show somebody paying you to do a job, you gotta look like you know what you're doing, do it efficiently. And, and I think part of the experience is just having a good attitude. I, my favorite feedback is that it was painless. You know, that people, you know, I connected with the people and they had a good experience. They can't, they don't necessarily say they love their photo, but they talk more about the experience that they were provided, that they felt comfortable. It's their favorite headshot they've ever had. To me that means everything. They're not going to tell me, Oh, you know, the huge, and it was in the perfect position and I loved the, you know, people, they always talk about experience, you know, and that's, that's the important thing.

Raymond: 00:36:16 Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because you mentioned there the, you know, you want to make it look like you know what you're doing. And it's funny that as somebody who's been shooting for so long, you still feel that way because sometimes I feel like, what am I doing? Like if I, if I have this feeling, is there something wrong with me inside? You know, but then you also brought up the, you know, making those micro adjustments, like, you know, turning the head a little bit this way, left shoulder, right shoulder, doing these things. Are you doing these different adjustments? More of that way of making it look like, I know exactly what it is that I want. I'm going to go for this look. Or is it, how much of a difference do these, I mean seemingly to me, such small adjustments really make to the final outcome of a photo. And how are you making those decisions?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:37:05 Wow.

Raymond: 00:37:07 Yeah, that was like a seven part question there. So if you knew any of it, I'll be excited.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:37:11 I know it's a great question. It's one again, I hate to fall back on the, it becomes automatic after a while. I think everyone understand, look, when everyone looks at anybody's portrait, you know, or headshot, you know, it's good or not. For one reason or another, the lighting is good. It puts the person literally in a good light or there [inaudible] the pose is pleasant to the eye, you know I've seen, I seen, you know, the worst port headshots ever and nobody told the person it was bad. I mean, where the photographer was horrible in the person who had their picture taken, had no idea what a good headshot was. So they just accepted it. But I th I, I'm pretty sure that 99% of the people out there, you know, note no good headshot when they see it. And so,

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:38:09 So too, so one of the things I tell people is when I asked them to choose their picture is, you know, I, hopefully I've given you enough choices and I know what I like and here's what I would prefer, but I need you to give me your input. Because what I would say is a really good picture. You may not find you know, to be a great picture of yourself. So that's one of the reasons I shoot so many subtle, you know, moves, tilts, you know, just very, very subtle. [inaudible] You know, different changes in body position. So that when a person go through, like if I shoot 20 frames and I edit it down to 10 and give that to the client to have them choose that they're going to see enough variation so that [inaudible] they're, they're going to say, you know, they're going to go from 10 to five to three to one, and they're going to be like, that's the shot.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:39:05 So regardless, people will tell me, they'll come in and they'll say, okay, I hate my left side. I only like to be photographed on my right side. And I'm like, okay, I get it. We're going to photograph you on your preferred side, but let's photograph you on the other side. You might surprise yourself. Maybe you'll see something that you never saw before. Part of me is, and I always say while I'm shooting is I want to give you as many options as possible. I want you to feel like, you know, it wasn't just one and done. So it's, part of it is just to make the client feel good and part of it is legitimately. And what do you see through the cameras? Sometimes translates differently to what you see on screen, you know, so let's give people, even if it's just a, a quarter of an inch of a move, sometimes the light falls perfectly. It's just the perfect expression. So it's not just head movements, it's smiles, no smiles, soft smiles, broad smiles, intense stairs. I mean, you know, I, it depends on the person. If a person comes in and they're very smiley and it seems to be their personality I know I'm going to get the smile, so I'm going to be like, so I've tried to bring them down not emotionally, but bring the smile, bring the smile down a little bit and give them something they may not necessarily thought they were capable of.

Raymond: 00:40:20 [Inaudible] I had never thought about it that way. I had never thought of delivering something to somebody that they might not see in themselves. You know, I had always looked at it as a, I had always looked at those minor adjustments as, as the photographer's way of like, I always thought that I was missing something. Like what are they seeing that I'm not seeing? But I never thought about it from that client's perspective of seeing, you know, cause I've seen photos of myself that I think that I look good and then I see the photo and I'm like, I look like trash. And then it's also the exact other way around. So that is, that is again, talks about that experience. And I think another part of the client experience is always like, what comes next? Right? So we have the lead up to it.

Raymond: 00:41:08 You try to get information from say a secretary of an executive preferences. You go do the shoot, say that they had, Oh, this was so great. This was a great experience. And the next is that delivery process. So when it comes to delivering photos, I'm used to delivering, you know, close to a thousand photos for a wedding. Right? It seems substantial when it comes to delivering headshots. What does that delivery process, what, cause often times this could be the last interaction that you have with somebody. Is there anything that you do to make it special to stand out for them?

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Raymond: 00:42:07 I as I said, I'm totally oblivious to the whole world of more volume photography. So that pricing model is completely foreign to me and I appreciate you kind of sharing the, the, those nuances there. There is a lot of things that I never [inaudible]. I would think that it would make that it would make sense to have like one set pricing, but the way that you talked about that makes a whole lot more sense than I would have a than I would have imagined. And I know that those listening how to have gotten a lot out of that. So thank you for sharing that. So let's talk a little bit about lighting. Because photography as we know, lighting is very, very important stuff. And you as a professional working photography probably bring more lighting gear to a headshot headshot session than I'd probably do to a wedding. Where do you suggest those who want to start shooting head shots? Start when it comes to buying lighting equipment? What do they need? Like what are the basics?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:43:08 Basics. Alright. One light is good enough but better yet get two lights. Now I'm not recommending any specific brand, but if, if cost

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:43:20 Is an issue you know, don't worry about having to spend tons of money. There are tons and tons of great pieces of equipment out there that, you know, won't break the bank. For a long time I was using, I should Canon, so I was using five eighties or the 600 series, whatever. I had flashes. There was several Chinese companies that make knockoffs are almost identical. They're not going to last as long or you know, I don't trust them. I've never bought them, but they are very similar in as far as I mean they're almost identical. They work TPL. The buttons are in the same places and they're half the cost.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:44:12 But beyond just having a flash if yeah, if you decide to use flash, you need modifiers, you need umbrellas softboxes those type things. There are a million different gadgets out there to help modify light. I'm I, for a long time I was using a lot of silly modifiers and then eventually I came back to umbrellas. Umbrellas are just terrific. Little umbrellas, big umbrellas. The main thing though I, I do is I get one that you can take the backing off so you can shoot through it. You can put the backing back on it and bounce into it. And you can also, the most important part for me is, is the diffusion cloth. You can put a diff, a layer of diffusion between the light bouncing off the inside and it goes through to fusing cloth and then obviously onto the subject.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:45:08 It's versatile. When I'm in a, sometimes I don't know what I'm getting into when I go to an office, I have a big umbrella. If they have high ceilings, I have a smaller umbrella. If they have low ceilings and if they have no, you know, really low ceilings, I bring a chair so they have to sit down and I can get my light higher than the subject. Sometimes it's not, even though the lighting gear, that's the most important thing. It's, it's you get into a situation where you're not prepared. So I just try to be prepared. I travel as light as I can, bring as much variety as I can. So that, depending on the situation there, I've gone to some offices where they had virtually no room to move in. So I ended up using window light as like a second light source.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:45:53 Like right now over your shoulder. I can see right now there's, there's a little bit of that rim light there. That works great. Do you have a two lights set up? As far as I'm concerned. That's a wonderful two lights setup. You've got the main light off to one side and you got your room light over there and that works great. That's a, that's a really good place to start for, for head shots. But then when you get it, Mmm. You get into lighting styles a little bit more. You might want to try something that's a little more glamorous, like a clamshell where you have a, you know, for, especially for women, it's a little more flattering is you get one softer diffuse light above the subject straight over. So you get a butterfly under the nose and then you have another umbrella or, or diffuse light underneath that's not as strong as the one up there.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:46:39 So it kind of fills in the shadows a little bit, fills in the shadows under the eyes, fills in the shadows. And more importantly for a lot of women is women that don't have extra chins think they have extra chains. You want to get rid of the shadow under the chin there and that's a wonderful light too. And then you can start, you know, you can have that one light here, one light here, and then you can start adding other lights and getting your room lights behind. You know, the sky's the limit. You can go crazy and do a super number of lights set up. But

Raymond: 00:47:11 So when you show up then how do you make that decision is saved, that space isn't an option or is, isn't, isn't, isn't a problem? How would you approach it?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:47:21 Well again, going back to answering questions before they're asked, I try to get as much information about the look that the particular company is going for. So, so I can have that set up in mind. And I do ask, I asked them, you know, are your ceilings, how high are your ceiling? Some people never thought about that question in their entire lives and all of a sudden they're like, Oh, I really don't know. And I'm like, well, you know, give me an estimate. And that way I'm prepared. I bring a chair if I have to. So the people are sitting so I can have my light higher than them. Cause I've been in so many offices when I first started out, especially, I didn't ask that question. I'd show up and you know, suddenly I have no way of getting that light any lower without it being like directly on them. And you know, it doesn't work for a lot of people. So Mmm. Again, ask questions. But, and, and, and ask those questions ahead of time.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:48:18 But when you don't have the benefit, when you don't have the benefit, when things do change, I've, I've come to complete agreement with somebody about the picture that they are expecting to get and then I show up that conference room can't be used. We have to go on this different part of the building. And that's when, you know, you start sweating. Just even I'd do this for years, I still start to sweat a little bit. I'm like, all right, what am I going to be up against? What am I going to have to do to make this happen? And Mmm. You know, odds are you can make it happen. If you can't, then you just have to explain to them, well, here's what happened. My, the room that I expected to work in is not, well, we have to use a different room. Here's what I have to change some things. Mmm. It's rare, but it happens. And again, experience

Raymond: 00:49:00 Pretty understanding of that. Like if, if that's the situation. Yeah,

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:49:04 Most, most times.

Raymond: 00:49:05 Yeah. I would hope so. I mean, if it's out of your control, you can only do so much.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:49:09 It's amazing what you can get away with you, smile, use a please and thank you and all that. Yeah.

Raymond: 00:49:17 That's great. That's great. So before this interview I was looking at your website and on your about me page, it says, you say on your website, did you bring quote the best professional equipment with you to your shoots? Now, I know that many of those listening probably, you know, they're new photographers probably don't have access to real professional equipment. Right? As somebody who doesn't have access to real professional equipment, are they still able to take exceptable headshots? And if so, what should they do to focus on getting the best results?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:49:51 Yeah, yeah. The old saying, at least in the news business is the best camera you have is the one you have with you. So everybody's walking around with an iPhone or a Samsung, whatever. Everyone's got a camera on it nowadays. So from that standpoint, no excuse, you could take a picture wherever you go. If you're moved up to an SLR, Mmm. You know, again, that's the camera you have, make it work for you. You may not have the best lenses. If you can invest in better lenses, the body's not as important. But that being said, if you have not the top end, you have an acceptable camera that works. You know, I would say Mmm, it's absolutely possible to make professional quality images with what you have comes down to the pilot, you know, not the plane. So you know, make sure that you, if you're passionate about it, just keep shooting and learn from your mistakes when you don't get what you want.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:51:01 You've just gotten experience and learn from that experience to ultimately get what it is you want from the pictures that you're shooting. And the first thing people ask me for advice, so I love to take pictures. How do I become a professional stalker? Well, what do you like to photograph? Mmm, some people, you know, they liked to photograph everything. When I was starting out, I like photographing everything, but I was totally intimidated by photographing people. So I made it a point to do what made me most uncomfortable. So that number, so that's some point in the future. It wasn't the most uncomfortable thing in the world anymore. It was just another tool in my kit that, you know, when I was putting the situation, it wasn't something I had to stress out about. So when I say that on my website about having the best, most professional gear possible, I think I wrote that because I'm not going to say I'm a Nikon shooter, I'm not a Canon shooter.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:51:59 I'm not going to put specific bodies because there's always a new camera or lens coming along. I just want people to see me as a professional. When I show up and I have the camera that I have people, it doesn't, it's not a question, you know, they don't know. Some people are like, Oh, is that a Canon, this and this and this? Oh yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [inaudible] But 90% of people are just like, Oh, it looks like a professional camera. They don't have to question it. So it's not necessarily what you have in your hand is how you use it. [inaudible] You show up with, yeah. A five D Mark four, and you don't know what the hell you're doing. What's the point of having the five D Mark four? Get comfortable with it, shoot with it. You know, if you're going to say you're a professional headshot photographer, a professional sports photographer, you know, got to walk the talk.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:52:54 That's all, you know, just I'm very proud of the pictures I have on my website, but that website is already two years old and I look at those pictures and I'm like, I have so many other pictures. I'm so busy, I've got pictures, I've got to update my website. But Mmm. Some of those pictures were shot with the five D Mark twos five D Mark three is now I'm shooting with five D Mark four is, it's, when you look at my pictures, I'm hoping you say, wow, he shot that with a really good camera. You're, I want people to say, you know, that person looks really good or they'll let you know, or it just looked professional. So, so to me it's a camera's a tool. It's a hammer. My job is photographer. I'm going to get the picture I want. I'm not going to show up and twirl my camera around and say, you know, this is the best camera anybody's ever going to use. It's in the results.

Raymond: 00:53:49 So, so then let me I, I don't want to rephrase the question cause I think that you answered the question that I had very well, but maybe thinking about it from a different angle. And this'll be my last question cause I know that I've, I've kept you longer than I, I said that I would, but what is something that anybody listening today, maybe they just have that entry-level camera, right? Maybe they just have a phone. What's something that they can do today to take a better headshot?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:54:15 Mm, Mmm, oof. Well, when you're all first starting out, I mean, I want you to be coming from a slightly different level, but it's really, you just can't shoot and then say you're done. You really have to look at your work. And I still do this as a professional. I look at everything I've done from a particular job and I see what I could have done better. And I, you know, Mmm. I think what you can do is, it's one of the things that my professors encouraged us to do 25 years ago, you know is,

Raymond: 00:54:51 Hmm,

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:54:52 Look at a lot of magazines, look at a lot of websites, see what you think looks good, Mmm. Even what you think is bad and then try to duplicate, you know, particularly looks. Mmm. Before you can be yourself, you have to kind of be somebody else. In photography, you have to kind of emulate other styles. And, and then eventually you'll find your comfort, comfort place. You know, where you feel like you're, you're seeing things the way you like them to be. So, but as far as headshot photography, if you're not a people person, don't become a headshot photographer.

Raymond: 00:55:36 Maybe. Maybe just learn how to interact with people. Rob

Tennenbaum: 00:55:38 Yeah. Let me pull out the camera. I think it's important. I'm a, I'm an introvert. I got to tell you, I mean, when I'm not shooting, I want to be home and hanging out with my family and not going to parties or whatever it is. As part of being 50 years old almost. But but when I'm with people, I kinda, I feed off of them. If that's your personality, where you meet somebody and you can find something interesting in them and and you, you know, you could B a portrait or headshot photographer. If you're not, then look at landscapes or look at you know, still life photography because photography itself is just such an amazing gift. It's and, and, and there's an outlet for type of it personality, you know. So, you know, for me, I'm comfortable in a lot of different fields. Mmm.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:56:32 But for me, what keeps me coming back to portrait photography is meeting the people, meaning organization, you know, organizations helping individuals and organizations present their best self. Because literally head shots are the first. It's usually the first impression that an outside person sees of an individual or a company. So I take it very seriously. You know, whether it's for 50 people or for one person, I, I try to make sure that the person is seen in the best light. And I never leave until somebody is happy. You know, their, their picture I want, I really want people to feel good about themselves, not just the experience and not about me, but I want them to, they'll feel like they're proud to have that image represent them. Mmm. So, you know, so somebody just starting out, I think for portrait photography, learn the technical parts of photography, but be, be comfortable around other people. And don't be afraid to be who you are. You know, when you're, when you're photographing people.

Raymond: 00:57:43 I I can't imagine saying it any better than that. Yeah. So Rob, I got to say thank you so much for your time today. You have, you've shared a ton about this world that I know nothing about and I feel like I know just a little bit more today than I did yesterday. And for that, I want to say thank you. And I hope that the listeners feel the same way as well. And if they don't, then they just must've had it on mute or something and not listen the entire time. Cause you did, we shared it. Yeah.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:58:11 The state's entire time without sound.

Raymond: 00:58:14 You shared a ton of great stuff. But before I let you in, before I let you go, can you let the listeners know where they can find you and your work anywhere online?

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:58:24 Yeah, my my corporate photography site is www.robtphoto.com. Rob TPH, oto.com, and it shows all the work I've done with celebrities and TV work, corporate work, individual portraits editorial style. Mmm. And there's even some still life on there as well, but there's some good celebrity stuff too. It's kind of fun. So I'm gonna check that out even just to see the celebrities. And then I the one business I don't advertise that I still do on referral is my family portrait and events site. And that's www dot first frames, photo.com fir S T F R a N E S photo a.com. And there'll be weddings on there and newborn portraits, different lighting styles, different kinds of clients. But you hopefully it speaks to

Raymond: 00:59:22 My my diversity. Yeah, absolutely. In your experience as well. Again, Rob, thank you so much for coming on and I can't wait to keep up with you and see what you're up to next.

Rob Tennenbaum: 00:59:33 Thanks very much. Thanks.

Raymond: 00:59:34 Oh man. Rob is just, he's just one of those super insightful people who I just love listening to. There's something about Rob that makes you just feel, you know, welcomed and comfortable with them. And that's a skill that I'm sure, you know, I'm sure it just takes years to cultivate to the level that, that Rob has, but it's no doubt a big contributor to his success working with headshot clients because I think Rob has figured out that a great photograph isn't always about the technicals. You know, he understands that it's about the connection that you have to make with people in order for them to, you know, perhaps drop their guard or get them comfortable in front of your camera so that you can really get a great photo of them. That's, that was definitely my biggest takeaway from this interview with Rob. I want to know what your biggest takeaway is from this interview and I want you to share it in the beginning photography podcast, Facebook group where I have added Rob and I'm sure that he would be happy to answer a question or two should they come up. So you can join the group, but just by searching Facebook for beginner photography podcast, and it should show right up. So that is it for this week. Until next week, I want you to make more, I want you to do more, and I want you to make do with the gear that you have because it's better than you know. All right. See ya.

Outro: 01:01:08 Thank you for listening to the beginner photography podcast. If you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review in iTunes, keep shooting, and we'll see you next week.