What Men Should Wear
for a Headshot.

Most of the wardrobe advice men arrive with is about clothing the camera will never see. The frame starts around mid-chest, so the trousers, the shoes, the belt and the watch are all irrelevant. What is left is a short list: the collar, the shoulder line, whatever is around your neck, and how the colour sits against the backdrop. Get those four right and there is nothing else to decide.

This page is the men's version of our general what to wear for headshots guide. The colour rules there apply to everybody; the fit problems below are the ones that show up in men's sessions specifically.

The frame is smaller than you think

A standard headshot is cropped from roughly mid-chest to just above the hair. On LinkedIn that image is then masked into a circle — a few hundred pixels on a profile page, and about 48 pixels wide next to a comment. Anything below the second button of your shirt is gone, and any detail finer than a shirt stripe is gone with it.

Which is useful, because it means you can stop thinking about the outfit and start thinking about a six-inch band of fabric around your neck and shoulders. That band is doing all the work. If you are booking a three-quarter or environmental shot as well, the rest of the outfit comes back into play, so say so when you book and bring the whole thing.

Collar and shoulders are the whole fit question

Two measurements decide whether a shirt photographs well, and neither is the size on the label.

The collar should sit against your neck with no daylight behind it. A collar half a size too big leaves a visible gap at the sides, and at a tight crop that gap reads as a borrowed shirt — or, less kindly, as weight recently lost. If you wear the collar open, the top button matters more than the tie you are not wearing: an unbuttoned soft collar collapses and the points splay out sideways. Shirts with a firmer collar, or a collar stay, hold their shape under lights.

The shoulder seam should land on the outside edge of your shoulder. A seam that hangs an inch down your upper arm makes the shoulder slope, and a sloping shoulder at a tight crop looks like slumping no matter how straight you are actually sitting. The same applies doubly to a jacket: if the jacket's collar lifts away from your shirt collar when you sit, that gap is at the centre of the photograph. A tailor can fix both; an hour under studio lights cannot.

Shirt, knit or jacket, by industry

The honest rule is to dress one notch above the room you want to be hired into, and no further. A photo that is more formal than the job looks like it belongs to somebody else.

• Law, finance, insurance, real estate. Jacket. A navy or charcoal blazer over a plain shirt covers nearly every case, and the tie is now genuinely optional unless your firm's own site is wall-to-wall ties. If you are booking for a whole practice, our corporate headshots page covers how a group session keeps everyone matched.
• Tech, product, design. A solid crew-neck or merino knit, or an oxford with the collar open. A full suit works against you here. More on that in tech headshots in Toronto.
• Healthcare. Wear what patients see you in — scrubs, a lab coat over a plain shirt, or neither if you work in an office. Logos and name embroidery are fine if they are current; they date the photo if you move.
• Trades, construction, logistics. A clean branded polo photographs better than a jacket you never wear, and reads as true. Bring a plain shirt as the second option so you have a version that outlives the job.
• Actors. Different brief entirely — character, not seniority. See corporate versus acting headshots before you pack.

Ties, and what a bad one does at this crop

If you wear a tie, the knot ends up a couple of inches below your chin, dead centre, in the sharpest part of the image. Everything that is forgivable across a boardroom table is not forgivable there: a knot with a gap above it, a knot pulled off to one side, a collar riding over the tie on one side only. Tie it tight to the collar, and let us see it before you sit down — straightening a tie takes five seconds and fixing a crooked knot in retouching takes considerably longer and never looks quite right.

Two materials to avoid: high-shine satin, which throws a specular highlight that is brighter than your face, and fine repeating weaves, which can shimmer or moiré at web sizes. A matte silk or wool tie in a solid colour or a wide, simple pattern is the safe end of the range.

Colour, pattern and the backdrop

Mid-tones. Navy, charcoal, mid-grey, olive, burgundy and deep teal all photograph cleanly and keep the attention on your face. Light blue is the most forgiving shirt colour there is.

The two failure modes are both about contrast with the background. Pure white against a light grey backdrop blows out and dissolves the edge of your shoulder; black against a dark backdrop does the same thing in reverse, and leaves a head floating with no body under it. Since the backdrop is a decision we make at the session, bringing one light and one dark option means we can always build in separation — headshot background colours explains which pairings work.

On pattern: thin stripes, small checks and herringbone are the three that cause trouble, because the repeat interacts with the sensor and the downscaling. They look fine on the back of the camera and shimmer in a LinkedIn thumbnail. A solid, or a pattern bigger than your thumbnail, is the reliable choice.

Grooming, and when to do it

Timing is most of it. Book the haircut five to seven days before the session, not the day before — a fresh cut has hard edges and visible clipper lines, and a day-one fade reads sharper on camera than it does in the mirror. A beard is better trimmed two or three days out, to the shape you actually keep, than edged the night before. If you are clean-shaven, shave the morning of; high-resolution files pick up five o'clock shadow that you would not notice in person.

Two small things that show at this resolution and take a minute: stray brow hairs, and shine. Forehead and nose shine is the most common thing we retouch on men, and a translucent powder or a blotting sheet at the start of the session deals with it at the source, which always looks better than removing it afterwards. Bring neither and we will still handle it in the edit.

Do not try a new skincare product the night before — your own baseline is the known quantity. If you wear glasses daily, wear them: a photo without them will not look like you to anyone who knows you, and the glare is our problem to solve, not yours. Headshots with glasses covers how. For the rest of the 24 hours before — sleep, water, what to eat — see how to prepare for a headshot session.

Frequently asked questions

What should a man wear for a professional headshot?

A plain mid-tone shirt that fits at the collar and the shoulder seam, with a jacket over it if your industry wears jackets. That is most of the decision. Skip pure white, skip fine stripes and small checks, and bring a second option in case the first one reads badly against the backdrop we are using.

Do I need a suit and tie for a LinkedIn headshot?

A tie is optional in almost every industry now, including law and finance, as long as the rest of the outfit is pressed and fits. A jacket is still worth wearing if the people looking at your profile wear one, because it reads as the same level of formality they are used to. If you do wear a tie, the knot has to be tight to the collar, because it sits at the visual centre of the frame.

Should I wear a white shirt for a headshot?

Pure white is the one colour we would talk you out of. Under studio lights it is the brightest thing in the frame, so it pulls the eye down to your chest and away from your face, and against a light grey backdrop the edge of your shoulder can disappear. Light blue, off-white, cream or light grey do the same job without the blowout.

How many days before a headshot should I get a haircut?

Five to seven days. A cut from the day before still has hard edges and visible clipper lines, and a fade at day one reads sharper on camera than it does in the mirror. Give it a week and it looks like your hair rather than like a haircut. The same goes for a beard trim, which is better two or three days out than the morning of.

Should men wear makeup for a headshot?

Nothing that changes how you look, but shine control is worth it. Forehead and nose shine is the single most common thing we retouch on men, and a translucent powder or a blotting sheet at the start of the session removes it at the source, which looks better than removing it afterwards. If you would rather not, we will shoot it as it is and handle it in the edit.