I’m a pretty talented guy. For the majority of my knowledge of photography, I’m self taught. That isn’t to say that I haven’t read books and online articles, watched and studied videos and generally tried to seek out information. I definitely have done those things. In fact, the majority of my foundational knowledge came from The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby. However, most of what I know was taking what I read and then applying it to situations and learning through trial and error—with a lot more error than I’ll readily admit to.

However, there are two purchases that have made a fundamental shift in my photography. In a matter of days, the professional level of my photography increased dramatically. Since I’ve always been big on giving credit where credit is due, I wrote a review of these two purchases in this blog post.

A Hittle History

A few months back, I was introduced to the site fstoppers.com. If you’re a photographer who isn’t familiar with their site, I highly suggest you take some time to look it over. It’s a fantastic resource for information covering all parts of the business of photography — and most of the videos they put together are awesome.

Anyway, I was looking through their site and I came across a video with a headshot photographer in New York named Peter Hurley. The video was well produced and I enjoyed it. What really caught my attention was that Peter’s headshot work was like nothing I’ve ever seen or thought of as a headshot. I mean, it’s a photo of someone’s head and face, but it didn’t look like what I’ve ever thought of as a headshot. The people in his photos have an almost tangible character and life that comes off the page and captures your attention. I was blown away.

So I started researching headshot photography to see what else was out there.
I looked in all the major markets I could think of in North America. Nobody seemed to be able to touch Peter’s work. So, I started looking at his website and checking his blog pretty regularly.

Then, as I was looking over the blog one day, I found an article. Peter decided that he wanted to start sharing his knowledge with other photographers and created a weekend long seminar called The Headshot Intensive. At the same time, he was producing a DVD with the founders of fstoppers.com called The Art Behind the Headshot. Not only that, if I attended The Headshot Intensive I got a really great discount on The Art Behind the Headshot. So, after some thinking and figuring and budgeting and discussion, Adam and I decided that I should attend The Headshot Intensive in September of 2011 in New York.

I will say that Peter has not told me what to say. This is my own review, and he honestly doesn’t even know this is coming as a blog post. I told him that I would give him feedback, but since I’m so happy with how things went when I was there, I figured I should make the feedback public. He deserves it.

The Headshot Intensive

This was the best $1,400 I’ve ever spent on my own education. I know, I just put it all out there as the first line of the review, but I’m hoping you’ll read the rest of what I have to say about it.

The Headshot Intensive is a two-day event that happens in one of Peter’s two studios, New York and Los Angeles. I attended one in New York, which is Peter’s home city. Now, Peter calls it an Intensive, and it is aptly named. We began our day on Saturday at 9 am and I ended Saturday night at 11:30 pm. Then we started Sunday at 9 am and didn’t end until 8 pm. Yes, we did take time to eat, but we usually worked through most lunches, sneaking a few bites on the side. This was a ton of information and shooting packed into the weekend.

The first half of Saturday was spent with Peter talking to us about his business.
We went through some technical things like his lighting, his history as a model and then photographer, his camera and equipment and all that fun stuff. I’m a technical person, so I enjoyed that, but it wasn’t the important part of the day. The really important part of the day was discussing what makes him successful in his business: the expressions he gets out of his clients.

The lighting and the camera and the studio and the computer and all of that makes good images. What makes amazing images is making sure your client looks like the real, relatable, interesting human being they actually are instead of letting them look like a well-lit, blank mannequin.

We discussed how to look for people’s angles. We discussed how to shoot different types of smiles and eyes and skin tones and body sizes. We talked about hair.
We talked about clothing. We talked about why he crops his headshots horizontally when the rest of the world was doing them vertically. We talked about retouching so our clients don’t look like aliens. We talked about how to coach and how to direct people to get the expressions we want out of them. We talked about how to wait for the right moment to get the shots we’re looking for and not taking a bazillion shots and hoping one will be “the one.” This was the information that is going to make the biggest impact of all when it comes to capturing images of people that they love, be they actors or brides or families.

After all of that discussion, I was fired up. Why? Because this is when the really intense part of The Headshot Intensive kicked in. Not only did we get to sit and learn these amazing bits of knowledge from the person considered to be the world’s best headshot photographer, we then got to shoot real, working actors in his studio with him guiding us and helping us begin to create amazing photographs. So after spending the first part of our Saturday obtaining knowledge, we spent the second part of our Saturday and all of our Sunday applying that knowledge. We had seven working actors and models come in for headshots between Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

Something that really amazed me was that Peter never seemed to run out of gas energy. If you watch the fstoppers video I linked earlier where I first saw him, you can see that he’s a really high-energy guy. I liked that about him. The thing is, he’s exactly the same in person. He’s all over the place, but in a good way. But he was just as fired up Sunday afternoon as he was Saturday morning.

He gets so excited to see people applying his techniques and taking good shots that you just can’t help but feel great about yourself. His enthusiasm and energy are infectious and makes you want to work that much harder to take better photos.
He knows you’ve spent good money on this class, and he does a damn good job of making sure you get your money’s worth out of it. If you spend any time with Peter Hurley, you’ll like him. I guarantee it. You can’t NOT like him. He’s just a really good, genuine guy.

Not only did I get a huge leg up on my portfolio by getting to shoot seven working actors and models in his studio; not only did I get that amazing amount of knowledge that Peter has spent the last 8 years of his career building; but I also got my own Peter Hurley headshots. He got me behind the lights and in front of his camera and shot my headshots as part of the Intensive. Considering his rate for headshots is $1,100, that’s a pretty good deal! However, it’s also an amazing learning experience. It’s much easier to identify with what a client is seeing and feeling once you’ve been the subject of the photos. It makes you a better photographer. I think it’s an ingenious teaching tool and I’m really glad Peter
does it.

I left New York with a completely new understanding of what it means to direct clients. I left with a much better eye for what is a good headshot and what is a bad headshot, how to explain those things and how to avoid making the mistakes of a bad headshot. I left with the tools to bring back to Toronto and become the best headshot photographer in the city. Before I left, I told Peter that, had I known how much I would be taking away from the Intensive, I would gladly have paid more for it. I honestly think it is worth every penny, and then some. If you have the money and the time to take this workshop, go. Book it now. Just do it. You’ll thank yourself a thousand times.

Do you have anything critical to say?

Okay, fine. I do have two small complaints from the weekend. There wasn’t enough coffee. I’m a big coffee drinker and I could have had a bit more of it. Peter brought in coffee for us each morning, but I could have had a few more cups through
the day.

The food he had for us was really good and I was impressed. I’m mostly vegetarian and I was accommodated quite easily, but you’d expect that in New York.
However, I could have done with a bit more for breakfast each day. These aren’t surprises though. I mentioned these things to Peter before I left. I like giving instant feedback.

The Art Behind the Headshot

As I said earlier, Peter worked with Patrick Hall and Lee Morris, the founders of fstoppers.com, to create a DVD. Let me be clear though, it’s not actually a DVD. It’s four hours of HD footage that you download from a link that is sent to your
e-mail address after you make the purchase.
Really though, who uses physical discs anymore?

You might be wondering why I would purchase the videos if I went through The Headshot Intensive. What I love about the videos is that they’re like taking the best and most detailed notes I could possibly have taken while I was at the Intensive. It’s four hours of video, and it’s all good stuff! Not only does Peter take you through almost all of the topics we discussed when I was with him in New York, you get to watch him shoot through portions of seven actual sessions himself.
It’s amazing!

For me, I think of The Art Behind the Headshot as an awesome refresher about shooting both headshots and any other type of portrait. Do I find the videos to be as amazing as working side-by-side with Peter for two days? No. You just can’t replicate that kind of experience. However, had I not gone to the Intensive, I still would have learned a ton of amazing things from this video.

If you’re serious about shooting amazing photographs of people that allows you to better capture the essence and character of your clients, you can’t afford not to spend the $300 on this video. It will do more for your photography than that new lens or that new camera body or that new strobe you’re eyeing. Not only that, it’s probably less expensive than all of those things too.

Capturing amazing images of people takes some good equipment. However, you can have all the best equipment in the world and take a lot of lousy photographs because you don’t yet quite know how to interact with your clients in order make them feel comfortable, let down their guards and allow you to express what is in their souls.

That’s what you learn from Peter Hurley.