Most people aren’t very good at choosing photos of themselves.
That might sound a bit harsh, especially coming from a portrait photographer. But I don’t mean it as an insult.
It’s completely normal.
When you look at a photo of yourself, you’re not looking at it objectively. You’re not seeing it the way a potential client, employer, collaborator or stranger sees it.
You’re seeing every insecurity you’ve ever collected.
The chin angle. The way your shirt hangs. The expression you think you make “all the time”. The tiny detail no one else would ever notice unless you pointed it out with a big red arrow.
As a result, people often choose the wrong photos.
Not bad photos, necessarily. Just the wrong ones for what they need the photos to do.
One of the biggest mistakes I see when clients review their proof gallery is choosing too many similar images. They pick five versions of almost the same photo, because those are the ones that feel safest.
Same angle. Same expression. Same crop. Same mood.
To them, each image feels slightly different because they are studying every tiny shift in their face. But to everyone else, the images do broadly the same job.
That means they miss out on range.
A good set of portraits should give you options. One photo might feel warm and approachable. Another might feel more confident and direct. One might be perfect for LinkedIn. Another might work better on an About page, speaker bio, press feature or social media post.
If every photo says the same thing, your gallery is doing less work for you.
The problem is that most people aren’t reviewing their gallery through a photographer’s eyes. They’re not reviewing it through their client’s eyes either.
They’re reviewing it through their own bias.
And that bias can be brutal.
I had a client recently who got completely stuck on the way her shirt was hanging. She felt it made her look too ‘boxy’. That was all she could see.
Not the expression. Not the light. Not the connection. Not the fact that the image was strong, professional and full of character.
Just the shirt.
Once we got over that hurdle, everything changed. Her attitude to the shoot shifted. She relaxed. She started seeing the photos more clearly. And by the end, she was delighted with what we had created.
That’s often how it works.
The first reaction is emotional. The second reaction is more useful.
A strong portrait isn’t about one perfect detail. It’s a combination of many things working together at once.
Composition matters. Lighting matters. Expression matters. Sharp eyes matter. Body language matters. The crop, the background, the direction of the face, the use of space, and the purpose of the image. It all adds up.
But most people don’t see the whole picture straight away.
They zoom in.
Literally and emotionally.
They inspect the image instead of reading it.
That is a problem, because your audience does not inspect your portrait like that. They don’t look at your LinkedIn photo and think, “Interesting, his chin is angled three degrees lower than usual.”
They make a much faster judgment.
Does this person look credible?
Do they look approachable?
Do they look like someone I would trust?
Do they seem like the sort of person I would want to work with?
That’s what your portrait is really doing.
It’s not there to soothe your insecurities. It’s there to communicate something useful to the people you want to reach.
That’s why the photo you like most isn’t always the photo that will work hardest for you.
Sometimes clients choose the strongest image. Sometimes they do not. It happens more often than you might imagine that a client rejects one of the images I think is best.
And that’s fine.
At the end of the day, photography is art. Art is subjective. You should like the images you use. You should feel comfortable with them. You should feel they represent you.
But there’s a difference between choosing a photo because it represents you well and choosing a photo because it hides the thing you are most worried about.
That’s where a photographer’s eye helps.
When I send a proof gallery, I don’t just leave clients to fend for themselves. I’ll often suggest images to add to their longlist, so those stronger frames at least have a fighting chance when placed alongside the ones they naturally pick.
I’ll also sometimes edit a couple of my own favourites, over and above what has been agreed in the package, because I want clients to have the strongest possible set to use.
Part of my job isn’t just taking the photo. It’s helping people see themselves more clearly.
That comes from photography, but it also comes from everything I did before photography.
In my previous career as a Chartered Financial Planner, I spent years helping people through conversations that could feel uncomfortable, personal and exposing. Later, when I was creating marketing materials and running a content production agency, I spent far too much time thinking about what made a photo engaging.
What made someone stop?
What made them trust?
What made an image feel human?
All of that now feeds into how I help people choose portraits.
Because the best photo of you isn’t always the one where you look youngest, safest, smoothest or most symmetrical.
It’s usually the one that feels alive.
The one where your eyes are engaged.
The one that gives people a reason to trust you.
The one that says something true before you’ve said a word.
So next time you’re choosing photos of yourself, try not to start with the tiny details.
Start with the job the photo needs to do.
Who is going to see it?
Where is it going to appear?
What do you want them to feel?
What do you want them to understand about you?
Then choose the photo that builds trust, not the one that soothes your insecurities.
That’s usually where the strongest image is hiding.
