Executive Headshots
An executive headshot is a portrait made for the moments where someone is deciding whether to take you seriously — a board page, a pitch deck, a conference programme, a fund's leadership roster, the profile a prospective client opens before the first call. It is the same craft as any professional headshot, held to a narrower brief: it has to read as competent and current at a glance, and it has to still look like you when you walk into the room.
What separates an executive headshot from an ordinary one
Most of the difference is judgement rather than equipment. A casual headshot only has to look like you. An executive headshot also has to carry authority without stiffness, and it has to survive being cropped into a circle on a phone screen and blown up on a conference banner in the same week.
- Expression over pose – approachable and assured, not the grin of a corporate stock photo.
- Lighting that flatters without flattening – enough shape to look like a person, not a passport.
- Framing that survives the crop – usable square, circular, and wide, because your image will be used all three ways.
- Wardrobe that matches the room – see the clothing recommendations for the specifics.
Why this matters more at senior level
In corporate, financial and professional-services work, the headshot is often the first and only image a buyer sees before committing real money or real risk. It sits beside a bio on a firm's website, in a pitch, in a proposal, in the press. A picture that is five years old, badly lit, or visibly cropped out of a party photo is a small signal, and small signals compound in exactly the situations where the stakes are highest.
The other pressure at this level is consistency. A leadership page where every portrait was taken by a different person, in a different year, against a different wall, reads as a firm that does not pay attention. One where the whole team matches reads as one that does. That is a photography problem with a straightforward solution: shoot the team together, in one setup, in one visit.
How a session works
The session itself is deliberately short. Most people need five to ten minutes in front of the camera; the work that makes the picture good happens before and after it. Booking an hour out of an executive's day is rarely necessary and is usually the reason these photographs get postponed for years.
- Before – wardrobe guidance in advance, so nobody arrives in the one shirt that will not work.
- During – active direction. You will be told what to do with your chin, your hands and your shoulders; nobody is left to work it out alone in front of a lens.
- Same day – a private online gallery with every image from the session, usually within 24 hours.
- After – two fully retouched high-resolution images, ready two to three business days after you choose them, with every unretouched frame available to download.
- Always – unlimited usage rights. The pictures are yours to use anywhere, with no licence to renew.
Retouching that stops at the right point
Retouching should remove the temporary and leave the permanent. A blemish that will be gone next week, a stray hair, a distracting reflection on a lens — those go. The lines that make a face look like a person who has done the job for twenty years stay. The test is simple: the photograph should not surprise anyone who then meets you.
Headshots for a whole leadership team
For teams, a complete mobile studio comes to your office, so the session runs between meetings instead of replacing them. Everyone is photographed in the same light against the same background on the same day, which is what makes a leadership page look deliberate. Sessions run throughout Boston and the surrounding area, on location or elsewhere — the details of where and how are on the Boston headshot photography page.
Experience
These sessions are photographed by Donis Perkins, who has been making professional portraits for over 25 years, for individuals and for hundreds of corporate clients, with more than 180 five-star reviews. You can read the reviews, look through the portfolio of recent work, or read more about Donis. If you are still deciding what kind of session you need, the overview of professional headshots is the place to start.
Rates
Individual sessions start at $350, and sessions for two or three people are priced per group; teams of four or more are quoted to fit. Everything above — the gallery, the unretouched downloads, the two retouched images, the usage rights — is included at every tier. Full pricing is on the rates page, or you can get in touch about a team session.