Tuesday, June 7, 2011

professional photos?

FSP has a new post here regarding professional pictures. For professional websites, how professional of a picture do you use? I struggled with this about a year ago when I needed a good picture of myself doing fieldwork for a proposal. My graduate advisor had a hilariously dated professional photo from the early 70s for our department website and only got an updated (and very nice) photo once he retired.

Do you have a stock professional picture of yourself? And if so, how formal is it - passport style with business suit, or standing ankle deep in mud?

In environmental consulting, the ideal picture is someone in the correct safety gear (as applicable), standing in front of a lovely rock formation/fancy piece of equipment, looking thoughtful, and wearing clean clothing. A google image search for "field geologist" provides a huge number of pictures that fit all of the criteria. We save the passport-style pictures for security badges.

I don't have a professional website (other than this one, har har!), but I could still use a stock photo of myself for linkedin, conferences, and proposals. I'm still not any closer to getting that ideal photo of myself.

2 comments:

Silver Fox said...

I don't have a stock photo, just some I use on Facebook or teh blogs, one with me in field gear at some distance away (It's the picture for this comment). Currently, I don't really have a need for anything else, but would probably browse LinkedIn if I was considering it.

I think one with field gear would be most appropriate for me, without safety gear unless the photo was taken at a drill rig or in a mine.

C W Magee said...

I'd go for planking in inappropriate attire on broken and dangerous machinery.