Portrait photographers know that to be successful, their clients need to feel that they will look great in the photograph. The composition, color, lighting, etc. could be perfect, but if the subject doesn't look great, you've lost the sale.

This especially applies to women, though some men can be quite conscious of their looks as well. I took some head-shots of a local actor recently.This was a freebie because my husband was the director of the theatrical production and asked me for a favor.The actor (middle aged) was blown away by the finished print and said he never knew he could look so good. As a result, he and his family later hired me to do some family portraits and his wife also hired me to take photos of her 3 dimensional fiber art for submission to several competitions.

So, in order to create happy clients you have to create photographs in which the client feels he or she looks good, or at least acceptable; If you are a good photographer, you know that this involves angles and posing which will hide flaws like flabby bellies. Lighting is also crucial so that you don't accentuate wrinkles and baggy eyes, for example. Among other things, you also need an inherent knack to have a good idea of which facial expressions and poses any individual client will find acceptable. On a normal shoot, I usually take in the neighborhood of 80 to 100 photos and I need to be able to weed out photographs which I feel are unsuitable because I certainly don't want to give the client that many proofs to choose from. I also may do some Photoshop enhancements like wrinkle softening or color correction on the proofs to make the client look as good as possible.

Now I'd like to get back to my original statement about the actor-turned-client; we do not usually have the time or opportunity to take a snapshot of a potential client to show them how good they can look under the right circumstances. So how do I approach a potential client who has seen themselves looking terrible in snapshots? I explain that first of all, there is a huge difference between a snapshot they take on their camera-phone and a photo taken by a professional photographer. But you knew that already, didn't you?

I pondered this conundrum for a while, and it finally came to me. The most effective explanation you can give is this: The camera captures only a nanosecond of time. When you look in the mirror at yourself, or when someone else is face to face with you, they see the WHOLE of you. They don't see you in split seconds of stationary images where at some moments the light casts an unflattering shadow on you, or when you make an otherwise almost imperceptible, unflattering grimace. Then, you can go ahead and explain why, as a professional photographer, you know how to capture an image that will reflect their WHOLE self in the way that they think they should look. I have found that this explanation works very well with most people. It somehow seems to make more sense to them when I explain it that way.

If you incorporate this strategy in your presentation, I'd love to know how it worked for you!