The Art Of The Headshot: Everyone's A Real Estate Agent

As I navigate the web, both as an artist and a new media person, I think about the images we use to present ourselves. Other than movie stars and professional personalities such as Oprah and Martha, real estate agents were actually the first profession to use headshots as one of the means of conveying who they are and what they would be like to work with. In the marketing and advertising world they call it "branding". But since that always makes me think of seared flesh on a cow's ass I tend I stay away from that expression. Whatever you call it, we're all doing it now.

Sharona Alperin, Real Estate Agent Extraordinaire

Take my friend Sharona, for example. Occasionally I receive postcards or web announcements with her face smiling at me. She's smart, confident and looks it. When I see her picture, I also instantly hear her signature sexy voice. I think to myself, "Man, if anyone is going find me a great house it's going to be her." As realtors go, she's pretty low-key. (She also has the curious distinction of being the namesake of the Knack's famous song "My Sharona" so she doesn't have to sell as hard.) But most real estate agents take it much further, putting their faces on everything from billboards, bus stops and print ads. I often wonder when the trend started. It must have been in the seventies, and some blond babe, probably here in Los Angeles, an out-of-work actor, perhaps, thought "I bet if I put a picture of myself on every business card and bus stop, billboard and sign outside the house, people would rather buy a house from me."

Special attention must be given to "Bijan". There's a corner on Sepulveda and Wilshire Blvds. in Los Angeles where he's always there spread across two billboards of this major intersection. His face and image are in every picture, always laughing and getting out of a yellow Ferrari or private airplane with his name slathered on it. It's fabulously ostentatious and not to be missed.

So what is the significance of that single image that you project and how everyone perceives you? When I was college intern working in an international design firm (pre-web), I saw a lot of resumes coming in from around the world. Unlike the American applicants who just submitted resumes, the designers from Europe affixed a passport photo size headshot on the corner. It stunned me how much the picture overrode any impression you could have of how they had spent their entire professional career. The impact on the mostly men who did the hiring was equally poignant. A pretty girl? Who cares where she went to school? Now we all confront it all the time, whether we read the blogs here on Huffpo or whether surveying friends of friends on Facebook.

Whether an activist, writer, blogger, student or artist, everyone is now a real estate agent. Once we admit or embrace this idea, let us examine a couple rules, shall we?

Activists Probably Shouldn't be Smiling and Baring Teeth.
If your goal in life is to be helpful, like, say, for a real estate agent, smile away. But I've always found something a bit aggressive about baring teeth and looking straight into the camera. It must stem from primitive days one animal signaled another not encroach on his meal. Once, an environmental activist friend of mine used a smiling headshot but all words she was writing were "Hey, the Earth is On Fire and We Gotta Do Something About it!" It was a disconnect and when I pointed it out she changed it.

Serious Writers Ought To Go Easy on the Smiling too.
For years when I read the New York Times, I never knew what Maureen Dowd looked like. Suddenly, on the web her picture appeared. At first she looked like how I expected her to look. For a while however, the photographer made her smile and when I read her column on the web it annoyed me. Now her picture looks like wry and witty like her writing again. I can't imagine reading Virginia Wolfe's To The Lighthouse and have her smiling at me either.

The Artist's Image
When I think of Picasso, I think of this black and white photo below. It captures the intensity of his gaze and something even deeper.

Picasso
The artist's image is intrinsically linked to portraiture. Before photography, the image of the artist was usually a self-portrait and hence in a state of scrutinization ~ a portrait of the artist staring at their reflection in order to depict his own image. Like this one of Albrecht Durer. My initial self portraits are equally intense.

Albrecht Durer, Kimberly Brooks (Self Portraits)

So then, what kind of image should an artist put out there? Let's take out the teeth entirely. Artists shouldn't be smiling, they should be suffering, no? I was recently selected in a juried exhibition in print called New American Paintings which required each artist to submit a picture. When the book came out, most of them were brooding and or looking away. Choosing a picture isn't easy. I blame modern photography on the frustration-- its shutter speed can capture an infinite array of nano emotions but then somehow miss a larger essence.

The Scientist's Image

My favorite scientist's image is this one of Einstein, hair messy, sticking his tongue out. He looks perfectly wacky enough to think of something as out of the box and crazy the Theory of Relativity. My brother-in-law Ken Goldberg is an artist and Robotics Professor at UC Berkeley. His Facebook portrait (below, right) is waiting-for-the-explosion wacky. Now he's blogging for the San Francisco Chronicle and uses the picture on the left.

Ken Goldberg, Scientist, Artist, SFGate Blogger

For some reason, bloggers like to show a happy version of themselves. Even I did it on this post. But is that the real me? I dunno, sometimes maybe. It will never be the right picture. As I tunnel through this thought experiment, I'm still figuring out the other professions. I'd love to know what you think.

***

First Person Artist is a weekly column by artist Kimberly Brooks in which she provides commentary on the creative process, color, fashion, technology and showcases artists' work from around the world. Come back every Monday for more Kimberly Brooks.

Comments

[JFo]

I have worked in real estate in Manhattan and Los Angeles, for the past 25 years. I have never put my picture on anything.
The trend started at the New York firm of Brown, Harris, Stevens (ironically founded by Leona Helmsley), running their individual pictures along the sides of their magazine ads. Their motivation was clearly to show potential, high-end buyers, that they were all WASPS. Even the ones who weren't had pictures shot to look that way. As the market in New York grew, the practice was picked up by other companies trying to rapidly boost their profiles. I'd venture a guess that at least half the time, it had the opposite effect.
I learned a great lesson about all this years ago from my client, the late Wendy Wasserstein, the Pulitzer prize winning playwright. Aside from being an accomplished playwright, Wendy became a New York institution, though her picture rarely accompanied anything she wrote or appeared in social columns, even though her name did. What I learned from her was the concept of 'enigma'- let other people decide for themselves who they think you are. When I would call to book appointments for Wendy, I would get responses from listing agents that were all over the map. They all clearly knew who she was but had clearly come up with totally different concepts of who she was. Why limit your audience was the lesson I learned. I think it applies to most fields, certainly to real estate.

[chasmader]

I'm a Real Estate Broker and if you ask me, putting your picture on a business card is an invitation to a discrimination lawsuit. It doesn't matter how innocent you are, they always go after the Realtor.

[KenStorch]

A recent NPR piece addressed the marking (marketing) of authors based on the appeal of their photographic portraits.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102821440

As a photographer, I should hail the use of photographic portraiture. After all, there aren’t many areas where a corporate design department must use a unique photograph, instead of just buying rights to generic stock photos.

Ultimately, I come down on the side of the photographer and her/his work as an essential part of our world. Good portraiture can be useful, and possibly even timeless.

[JScott]

And don't forget adobe photoshop to make everyone look prettier!

[makingupamerica]

Kimberly, you make me want to use a wacky headshot, for my blog Making Up America, that a photographer captured of me in a nano second of original unrehearsed feeling and living, taken after I finished makeup for a bride. Normally, I am reserved while doing the grooming and makeup for President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton , Senator McCain, Madame Speaker Pelosi and other key political figures getting their headhshots done. As a makeup artist, who is constantly trying to help produce quality images of people, thanks for a post that hits home for me.

[jade7243]

Can I help you pick up all those names you dropped?

[Senzasord]

Of course the tem head shot means different things to different peole. Ask some Navy Seals about three Somali pirates.

[RickB]

When I was in business school, I took a class in small business management from a guy who had made and lost a couple of fortunes in buying and selling small businesses. He had great information and a great style, and I still apply many principles I learned from him today.

One thing he insisted on was never including your picture in any advertisement for your business. He said that there was no such thing as a picture of someone that everyone liked, and for any number of rational or irrational reasons ("she's TOO pretty", "he looks like my ex") people will make up their minds they don't like you and won't do business with you because of the photo. You can't afford, he said, to let potential customers get away like that in the small business world.

[justlw]

Or "message" ... :-)

(What, no "delete" button? Argh.)

[spartanmom]

Don't you hate it when that happens?

[justlw]

The "chipped tooth" of writing is neglecting to proofread. To me, this is as much of a make-or-break for image as one's headshot. Leaving out one little punctuation mark can be very jarring, as shown in sentence two of this article:

"My friend Sharona is a real estate agent I'll occasionally receive postcards or web announcements with her face smiling at me."

And towards the end: "I never knew what Maureen Dowd look liked."

Just little things, to be sure, but they can be very distracting from the mess you're trying to convey.

[phlashba]

BRAVO!

[fleaba]

Ugh, here in Northern Colorado there are a couple of real estate agents, (women) who have given the "head shot" an entirely new meaning with serious boudoir type photos. IN my family, we laugh at that.
There is another real estate agent who calls herself the real estate rock star. Ugggghhh. When we were looking for a house, even if she had a listing for a house we thought we might like....I refused.
The whole "head-shot" thing is so conceited and doesn't really portray what people are actually like.

[Nezua]

Hm. I'm an artist/pho­tographer, so I really enjoyed this.

Your icon looks...pained. Is that what you were going for? And I get a sense of motion with the posture and composition, added to the expression it accumulates to feel as if you are trying to escape the frame.

[spartanmom]

Yes! I was trying to put my finger on what it was about the icon that bothered me. I even went looking for a larger version in hopes of figuring it out.

You summed up the thumbnail in a nutshell!

[chitown]

Hi Kimberly - Love your self-portrait, and the headshot is good, too. But I have years of experience in casting for theater and film, and I wonder if having such a "nice girl" name like Kimberly Brooks is an impediment to your being taken seriously as an artist? No offense - it's a perfectly good name - but artists are generally perceived to be tortured souls, filled with angst and self-doubt. Even changing it a little, to "KImber Brook" say, would give you more of an edge. (I know you won't do it, it's just a thought!)

[fleaba]

The name Kimber Brook might give you an edge...if you want to be a stripper.

[edfredned]

One of my favorite childhood books is Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree". But have you ever looked at the back? It's a too-large picture of him with somewhat of a grim face and a chipped tooth. Definitely not a friendly look for such a warm writer. I could never figure out why they chose THAT picture to put on the back. When I read The Giving Tree to my son, I make sure never to show him the back of the book.

I found a crude image online: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/6166/ss/pics/shel001.jpg

Ed
[e-mail]
http://edfredned.blogspot.com/

[philistine]

Maybe the jpg makes him look worse, but THAT man looks like he EATS children.

[JillinPittsburgh]

I'm so glad I read edfredned's post and then clicked on the link too. It is the best laugh I had all day.

[COPerez]

If you'd gone through this line of thought prior to using the headshot you have on your column, perhaps you chose it ironically. But you've crossed artistic lines by writing about art... so perhaps the smiling picture is appropriate.

In any case, nice article; now I'll have to go re-think my facebook pic.

[WilliePilgrim]

As typical, very interesting take on art and culture. The concept of the headshot especially meaningful as our society and technology conspire to create a world in which we are all in the process of becoming celebrated, whether on the ubiquitous billboard or the smaller but far reaching grasp of facebook...or blogging.
Talk about headshots, I wish I could post myown facebook headshot. You'd love it.
Oh, and by the way, I love the self portraits...both yours and Durer's. The talent for creating lifelike representations of ourselves is a testament to human perception and sensitivity and often overlooked on our world where photoimagery and abstract expressionism loom so large on our horizons. Thanks.