How to take a professional headshot with only your phone

1. Light: face a window

Soft daylight from a window in front of you is the most flattering light there is. Avoid direct midday sun, which makes you squint, and overhead room lights, which cast shadows under the eyes. On a bright day, a north-facing window or a shaded spot outdoors works well.

2. Background: plain, and not too close

A plain wall in white, grey or a muted colour keeps attention on your face. Stand a metre or two in front of it so you don't cast a shadow on it, and so it falls slightly out of focus.

No plain wall? A closed door, a curtain in a solid colour, or a bookshelf a few metres behind you all work, as long as nothing seems to grow out of your head. Outdoors, a shaded wall or distant greenery gives a soft, natural background.

3. Camera: back camera, eye level, 2× zoom

Use the main back camera, which is sharper than the selfie camera. Hold the phone at eye level (a stack of books or a cheap tripod helps) and use 2× zoom or portrait mode from a little further away: a close wide-angle shot makes noses look bigger. Use the timer or ask a friend.

4. Framing and pose

Frame from the middle of your chest to a little above your head. Turn your shoulders slightly away from the camera and your face back towards it, push your chin slightly forward and down, and keep your back straight.

5. Clothes and grooming

Wear what you'd wear to work, in solid colours: a blazer, a collared shirt or a neat kurta. Avoid busy patterns, logos and anything that blends into the background. Check your hair and collar in the first photo.

6. Expression, then many shots

A small, relaxed smile with slightly narrowed eyes looks confident and friendly. Take twenty or thirty shots, then pick the one that looks most like you on a good day, and crop it neatly. Keep edits light so it still looks like you.

Shooting on your own

No one to help? Lean the phone against books at eye level, or use a small tripod, and switch on the 3- or 10-second timer. Burst mode, where you hold the shutter button, gives you many frames to choose from. Turn on the camera grid and keep your eyes about a third of the way down the frame. If you can only use the front camera, hold it at arm's length slightly above eye level, and wipe the lens first: a smudged lens is the most common reason phone photos look soft.

A simple shot list

Changing one thing at a time gives you real choices at the end, instead of thirty copies of the same photo:

1. Your work outfit, a slight smile, shoulders turned a little to one side.
2. The same, with a fuller smile.
3. Shoulders turned to the other side: most faces have a side that photographs better.
4. A layer off, such as the blazer, for a more relaxed look.
5. A step back from the camera, for a wider crop with more background.

Look at the photos on a laptop or a large screen before choosing: small problems like a stray hair or a crooked collar are easy to miss on a phone.

7. Edit lightly

Straighten and crop the photo, then adjust brightness and contrast a little if it looks dark. Gentle warmth can help under cool daylight. That is usually all a good headshot needs.

Skip beauty filters, skin smoothing and face-shaping effects. They make skin look plastic, and a photo that doesn't look like you defeats the point: the people who see it will meet you in person or on a video call.

Common mistakes

• Shooting from below, which shows the underside of the chin. Keep the lens at eye level or a little above.
• Standing right against the wall, which casts a hard shadow behind you.
• Mixing light: a warm room lamp and cool window light together give patchy skin tones. Switch the lamp off.
• Cropping too tight, so the top of your head or your shoulders are cut off awkwardly.
• Busy clothes, big logos or a cluttered background that pulls the eye away from your face.
• Using an old photo. A headshot should look like you today.

Which photo to use where

• LinkedIn and job portals: a head-and-shoulders crop with your face filling most of a square, because profile photos are shown as small circles.
• Résumé: the same photo, small, in a top corner of the first page.
• Company website or speaker profile: a slightly wider crop with some background, which leaves room for different layouts.
• Exam forms and passports: not a styled headshot. They have their own rules; see the exam photo guide and the passport photo guide.

Or start from the selfies you already have

If you'd rather not set up a shoot, Professional Headshots makes studio-style headshots from 1–4 selfies in under a minute. These are AI-made photos, fine for LinkedIn or a résumé but not for exam or passport forms.