Peter Hurley – Perfecting the Headshot

Confidence with Approachability

If there is one main theme behind Peter’s work, it is that every person needs to look both confident and approachable. The number one challenge any photographer has when photographing people is learning how to break them out of the all too common “deer in the headlights” look and make them look comfortable and engaging. In this tutorial Peter dives deep into the human psyche and explains why people almost always have apprehension and fear when looking into a camera. After learning what causes people to look “blank and out to lunch,” Peter teaches you multiple techniques to make your subjects look more confident and attractive.

Strengthening the Physical Features of the Face

Perhaps one of the most difficult skills to master as a photographer is directing people into a flattering pose or position. Before working with Peter, we used to believe that there were good and bad models and attractive and unattractive subjects. Peter turns that mentality upside down and puts every aspect of the image in the photographer’s hands. Peter is a master at manipulating the body, and through creative angle positioning he can either hide or accentuate someone’s facial features.

Celebrities and celebrity photographers are masters at this skill but Peter shares the same techniques so that you too can strengthen jawlines, minimize weight, straighten out crooked noses, even out differences in eye size, improve posture, and hide perceived flaws like crooked teeth, large ears, double chins, and forehead wrinkles.By evaluating every client that comes through his door and applying his techniques, Peter can pull out the most amount of beauty from anyone who steps in front of his camera.

It’s pretty amazing to view the differences between first image from a session and one taken 10 minutes later when the client applies Peter’s coaching techniques. In many cases the person’s features look completely different and the overall final headshot is a much more pleasing portrait of the person. In this tutorial Peter teaches you everything he uses to make the smallest detail perfect so your clients can look their absolute best.

Crafting Dramatic and Flattering Lighting

One of the most recognizable elements from a Peter Hurley headshot can be found in his lighting. Peter typically uses soft, flattering lighting for his women’s portraits but often adds shadows and dramatic edge lighting to his men’s headshots. Over the years Peter has evolved his signature “4 light beauty light setup” into a more efficient triangular setup, and he explains exactly where to place your lights so that you too can get the most flattering skin tones, shadow density, and general pop out of your own headshot lighting. Peter also teaches you how to chisel out jawlines by adding a kicker light as well as how to manipulate fill light to increase or decrease the overall shadow density in your male lighting setups.

Peter is known for his large constant lights which provides soft, flattering lighting on any subject. However, if using constant lights is outside of your budget, Peter also shows you how you can achieve similar looking lighting with the use of small speedlights as well as by using 100% natural light. Whether using natural lights, hot lights, or strobes, or are shooting inside a studio or outside, this tutorial will teach you how to craft Peter’s headshot lighting regardless of what gear you can afford.

What You’ll Learn In Perfecting the Headshot?

• 10 1/2 Hours of Content
• 21 Video Files (14.5 GB, 1080p 23.98fps h.264 mp4 files)
• The Peter Hurley Headshot System
• Lighting for Women and Lighting for Men
• Peter’s Setup with Constant Lights, Strobes, and Natural Light
• The Chameleon Approach and Sherlock Holmesing
• Understanding the 4 Different Types of Clients
• Minimizing Weight
• Reducing Glare in Glasses
• Picking Your Lens and Flattering Focal Lengths
• Shooting Headshots Outside
• Accentuating and Hiding Facial Features
• Working with Children
• Peter’s Favorite Tips on Hair and Makeup
• 3 Full “Real World” Client Shoots
• Understanding the Business of the Headshot Market
• Retouching Headshots with Damian Battinelli
• Peter’s Entire Client Proofing and Workflow

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