From corporate headshots to family photos, professional photography has many different uses in the United States as well as in many other places all around the world. There are many different reasons that professional photos are taken, and many different uses for them. Some professional photographers specialize in certain areas of photography, while others choose instead to branch out more. No matter what a professional photographer specializes in, however, they are likely to have someone seeking out their services.

For one, many people have professional portraits taken of their children as they grow up. Newborn photography has become trendy, and many people even take maternity photos with the pregnant mother and her partner before the baby is born. Family photos are also common, and can be done in a number of styles. Finally portraits and pictures that are professionally taken can help to commemorate important life events. Almost every wedding budget nowadays incorporates a professional photographer, and most kids in the United States have senior portraits taken right before or even during their final year of high school. Though we all take our own amateur pictures now thanks to the high quality of cell phone cameras, have professional photos taken can add a little something extra to how you remember and commemorate an event for the rest of your life.

Professional headshots are also becoming more important, and present a way to make a great first impression even before a potential client or even employer has ever met you in person. In fact, a first impression can be formed in as little as one tenth of a second, and most of this first impression is based on how trustworthy you look as well as how competent you seem. This can be difficult to portray in headshots, but the right professional photographer can help to make it happen. Your corporate or otherwise professional headshots should be professional but friendly. You should look open but like you know what you’re doing. For many people, in order to have headshots that can convey all of this and more, a professional who knows what they are doing will be needed to actually take them.

Fortunately, there are some definable ways to make your professional headshots better. For one, you should smile with your teeth. Your smile should look genuine, which means that your eyes are likely to be squinted more than usual, more than they would be for a forced smile or no smile at all. You should also have a sharp jawline, though you don’t necessarily to have been born with a sharp jaw. Using tricks of light, a professional photographer can create the illusion of a strong and solid jaw even in those of us who do not necessarily have it naturally. Finally, the ideal headshot will have eye contact with the camera, as this can convey a great sense of trustworthiness to all who look at the headshot.

The benefits of professionally taken headshots can clearly be seen on the social media and job recruitment website, LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, those who had profiles that contained a professionally taken headshot or even multiple headshots were as much as forty percent more likely to get direct messages and responses to their profiles and even got more than ten times the views that other profiles that did not include headshots did. Having a headshot helps you to become more of a real person to prospective employers – and more of a trustworthy one at that.

From professional and corporate headshots to baby pictures of your child’s first or second birthday, professional photographers have many areas of photography in which they are very much needed. Without professional photographers, we would need to rely on our own, often very amateur, photography skills which do not always capture a person or even an event in the ways in which we hope that they do and want them to. Professional photography is a growing field here in the United States, and those who find a profession in it must have a keen artistic eye for detail and composition, even for corporate headshots and other professional pictures taken all throughout the United States.