Headshots vs. Portraits
During a headshot session, we keep the camera up close and personal. All the images are captured from the chest up while we concentrate on coaching you toward your best expression. That’s 100% on us and something we pride ourselves upon. We’ll coach you throughout the entire process to not only capture superb imagery but to educate you on what angles and expressions work best for you. We often vary the background colors and love a variety of clothing changes over the course of the session. As you can see from our work, we have created beautiful lighting that is headshot specific and matches our aesthetic that we believe will have you looking your best.
Our portrait sessions are where we love getting creative and vary things up quite a bit. We’ll be including portraits along with your headshots, so you’ll have an assortment of different backgrounds/lighting and we change the proximity of the camera to the subject as well. You’ll walk away with a broader range of pictures and everything you’ll need for your own personal branding purposes.
About the Session
We will be capturing and reviewing the images together as we go. Inspecting the shots in this way helps us to determine their viability for your use. In doing so, we will be able to adjust the focus of the session to account for anything we feel you could additionally benefit from along the way.
Purchasing Images
After the shooting portion of the session is complete, we’ll sit down and review each shot that we’ve kept up to this point individually. After discarding the obvious shots that you won’t need we’ll hone in on the ones you’ll end up keeping. Throughout this process, we’ll be narrowing down your selection so you only leave with the best of the best. We consult our clients on things like expression, and what can and can’t be done in the retouch, as well as making sure you have a nice range of shots to utilize from your shoot. By the end, you’ll decide upon the images that you are going to purchase and they will go off to the retoucher and be delivered to you a week after your shoot date.
Clothing
We love our clients to bring a range of different options for clothing. The #1 rule for us is that you have to love it! If you don’t feel comfortable in it, you most likely won’t shoot well while wearing it. We suggest you bring a range of different cuts, colors, and necklines. For our corporate clients, we like the men to have a variety of jacket/shirt/tie combos and for the women some options of blouse/dress/jacket combos. We suggest keeping jewelry to a minimum, studs or small earrings work and simple necklaces, anything hanging or chunky will usually draw too much attention to itself, bu tif that’s your speed have at it! If you wear glasses and have multiple pairs, then we’d appreciate you bringing them along in order to ascertain their glare factor. If you have any doubt about whether something will work or not just bring it along. Layers are fantastic for the actors and no need to be seasonal; everything from t-shirts and tank tops to sweaters and light jackets can work. Have some fun with this, if you feel your wardrobe is missing something then go shopping and we’ll keep the tags on it in case you’d like to return the items after the shoot. We have a steamer in the studio, so we’ll be able to easily sort out any wrinkling for you.
Hair and Makeup
Women’s makeup:
Makeup for the session is not required but is highly recommended for all women. The cost for makeup during your session is listed above and includes hair help.
The makeup is applied specifically for the lighting we use and we usually start very naturally to give you a very clean simple look. We do touch-ups and will add subtle changes to the makeup as the shoot progresses. If you’d like to start off a little heavier on the makeup we are happy to do that as well, just let us know.
Women’s hair:
We ask that everyone come in with their hair ready the way you would like to present yourself. We want your hair in your pictures to be as close as possible to the way you look on a fantastic hair day and can’t have you showing up to the studio as if you just rolled out of bed. Of course, our makeup artist is there to make sure it’s shoot-ready and we will discuss what you’d like to do with it and make a game plan at the beginning of the shoot.
If you need a major overhaul hair-wise or you are naturally curly and want to go straight there may be an extra $50 charge for our makeup artist to blow it out for you. Make sure you discuss this with us prior to your session, so we are all on the same page.
Men:
We don’t recommend makeup on men, but our makeup artist can provide light grooming for skin and hair on the shoot if you like. Just inquire with us about pricing prior to your session. Our professional retouching usually covers any issues that may arise skin-wise, so there are no worries in that dept.
Facial Hair:
If you’d like to shoot with facial hair we’d be happy for you to come in with whatever level of growth you’d like and can shave or trim it down once we’ve gotten the scruff covered. Bring whatever grooming products you’ll need with you to get it done.
Scheduling and Payments
We are available for shooting Monday through Friday and usually schedule 1-2 sessions a day starting around 11 am. We are happy to tweak the time of your booking, so feel free to request the best time that will work for you. We do ask that you don’t schedule anything important right after your shoot in case we feel we need a little more time with you.
The full payment of the session fee is required to book a spot on our calendar. You may book online or contact the studio and we will get you set up with a session that is perfect for you. If the times that are shown available don’t work for you, just reach out to us and ask! We are flexible and at times can possibly get you in on a weekend if need be as well. Any other payments(image purchases, proofing galleries, and hair/makeup) can be taken care of on the day of the shoot.
We accept all major credit cards, cash, checks, Paypal/Venmo, ACH transfers, Zelle as well as Bitcoin or Ethereum by contacting us directly. Once the session fee is paid you’ll just be responsible for the images that you decide to purchase on the day of the shoot and hair/makeup if you have hired our stylist.
Directions and Contact
New York Studio
134 W 26th St Suite 1203
New York, NY 10001
(between 6th and 7th Ave)
Phone: 212.627.2210
Email: info@peterhurley.com
Los Angeles Studio
We like our clients to be 100% informed, so thanks for taking the time to read all this pertinent information. If you still have questions feel free to ask us! We look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks!
Peter and Britney