Yes, you should smile for senior pictures, but aim for a mix of genuine expressions—big smiles, soft smiles, and serious looks—to capture your personality, as a forced grin looks unnatural, but a happy smile creates positive feelings and stands out. The best approach is to be yourself, offering variety to have memorable photos that reflect your true self, not just a single expression.
🤔 The answer is simple – do whatever feels like you! Whether you're all about those natural smiles or love a more serious, moody vibe, there's no wrong answer. Most of my seniors go for a little mix of both, and it gives you a great variety to choose from!
Neutral colors are great to incorporate into your senior portrait outfits. Black, white, grey, ivory and shades of khaki or brown can be so powerful in your portraits.
Make sure your eyes are engaged--think of smiling with your eyes (sometimes called ``smizing''). Posture: Stand or sit up straight. Good posture can make you look more confident and can enhance your smile. Practice Good Oral Hygiene: Brush your teeth and use mouthwash before the photo to ensure your smile looks fresh.
Although the time and effort required to pose with a smile is a strong reason not to include it in a picture, there are other reasons, more social than practical, that also justify forgoing it. Due to their scarcity, smiles in art began to be considered radical and unseemly.
Professional headshots can have smiles with teeth, or without teeth. Or, perhaps just a hint of a smile. Your expression for a headshot can have a smile, no smile, or the expression, that makes you feel comfortable.
Mistake #1: Using just any photo
The problem being, of course, is that everyone (and I mean everyone) can 100% tell that it's not a professional headshot, no matter how much you think it might pass as one. Having a distracting background doesn't translate well when you see the tiny thumbnail on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Why is it so hard to smile in pictures? The easy answer is that smiling in moments of true joy or happiness is natural while smiling in pictures forces you to construct a smile without stimulation. A natural smile involves the use of muscles around the mouth and eyes, hence the phrase: 'Smile with your eyes.
5 Traits of a Beautiful Smile
But, there are somethings that may not work the way you are wanting them to!
The 3-color rule in fashion is a guideline suggesting you limit your outfit to three main colors (plus neutrals like black, white, or beige) for a balanced, cohesive look, typically using one dominant color, one secondary, and one accent "pop". It helps avoid busy or clashing outfits, making it easier to create stylish combinations, but it's a flexible tool, not a strict law, with exceptions for complex patterns or personal flair, say Reddit users.
The "3 1 rule" in photography most likely refers to the Rule of Thirds, a fundamental composition guideline that suggests placing your main subject or key elements along imaginary lines that divide your frame into nine equal parts (three horizontal, three vertical) or at their intersection points, creating more dynamic and visually engaging photos than a centered subject. This off-center placement encourages the viewer's eye to explore the image, building balance and narrative by leaving open space (the other two-thirds) for context.
Around 72% of Gen Z report that they compare their smiles to others on social media with 45% saying social media harms their confidence in their smile. The same source of these insecurities is often looked to for solutions.
Here are our top 4 Do's & Don'ts as you plan your next photoshoot
A genuine smile is always visible in the eyes. Smiling eyes are relaxed, with raised cheeks, and a nice tension appearing on the side of the eyes. The mouth can be anywhere from slightly raised or wide open, but it is the eye action that communicates the honesty of a smile.
It may surprise you to learn that being photogenic has nothing to do with whether or not you're conventionally attractive or “beautiful” in real life. In fact, attractiveness and beauty are highly subjective, based on standard societal conventions as well as individual taste.
There can be some structural issues like a protruding jaw, excess gum display because the facial muscles are over active, etc. Broken, stained, and chipped teeth, front incisors that stick out too far, or other issues can affect a person's smile.
The Duchenne smile hypothesis is that smiles that include eye constriction (AU6) are the product of genuine positive emotion, whereas smiles that do not are either falsified or related to negative emotion.
The 20/60/20 rule in photography, popularized by wildlife photographer Paul Nicklen, is a time/effort strategy: spend the first 20% of your time getting safe, technically sound shots; the next 60% pushing creativity with angles and light; and the final 20% taking big risks for "once-in-a-lifetime" magical shots, accepting many will fail but crucial for growth. It's a framework to balance basics with innovation, ensuring you get publishable images while also developing a unique artistic style.
A few professional headshot tips on what to wear for headshots:
Branching out from five central subject areas, the five Cs -- camera angles, continuity, cutting, close-ups, composition -- Mascelli offers film makers a detailed and practical course in visual thinking.
Research shows that people are more likely to trust others showing genuine smiles. Emotional contagion: We unconsciously mirror emotions we see, so a smiling photo actually makes viewers feel a little happier themselves.
A bad headshot, on the other hand, is one that is poorly lit, out of focus, or has a distracting background. It may also feature an unflattering angle or an inappropriate expression or outfit. Avoid headshots that are too casual or unprofessional, as they can harm your credibility and make you appear unprepared.
People thought smiling in a photograph was unrealistic because that was not the way your face looked most of the time. In a 2013 article called “The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture,” art history scholar Nicholas Jeeves writes that portrait subjects eschewed smiles because of social stigma.