How to Take a Professional Headshot at Home (With or Without a Photographer)

Not everyone has access to a photography studio. Not everyone wants to visit one. If you're working remotely, live far from a major city, or just want to handle this yourself, you can get a professional-looking headshot without leaving your house.

This guide covers two approaches: DIY with your phone or camera, and AI-generated headshots from everyday photos. Both work. The DIY route takes more effort but gives you full control. The AI route is faster and more forgiving of imperfect input.

The DIY Approach: Using Your Phone or Camera

Equipment You Actually Need

Camera: Your smartphone is fine. Any phone from the last 3-4 years has a camera capable of producing headshot-quality images. Use the rear camera, not the selfie camera. The rear lens produces sharper images with less distortion.

Tripod or stable surface: Handheld headshots look handheld. A phone tripod costs $15-30 and eliminates camera shake. Alternatively, stack books on a table and lean your phone against something. Stability matters more than the mount.

Timer or remote: Set your phone's camera timer to 3 or 10 seconds, or use a Bluetooth remote shutter for $10-15. This lets you step back, compose yourself, and look natural rather than extending an arm.

Light source: A window. Seriously. Natural window light is better than most artificial lighting setups that cost hundreds of dollars. More on this below.

That's it. No ring lights, no reflectors, no softboxes. Those help, but they're not necessary for a single headshot.

Lighting Setup

Stand facing a large window. Not beside it, not with your back to it. Facing it. The window should be in front of you, the camera between you and the window.

Ideal conditions:

• Overcast day for soft, even light with no harsh shadows
• Large window, because more surface area means softer light
• White or light-colored walls to bounce light back and fill shadows
• No direct sunlight hitting your face, which creates hard shadows and squinting

If you only have direct sunlight: Hang a white bed sheet over the window. It acts as a diffuser and turns harsh direct light into soft studio-quality light. This is the same principle professional photographers use with softboxes.

Time of day matters. Morning and late afternoon light is warmer and more flattering. Midday overhead sun through a window can create unflattering shadows under your eyes and nose.

Background

The simplest professional background: a plain wall. White, light gray, or any solid neutral color works. Check for:

• Light switches and outlets. Move to avoid them in frame.
• Picture frames, shelves, or other visual clutter
• Shadow patterns from window blinds
• Color casts from nearby furniture

If you don't have a plain wall, hang a solid-colored bed sheet or large fabric behind you. Iron it first. Wrinkles are visible and look unprofessional.

Distance from background: Stand 3-4 feet away from the wall. This creates natural depth and prevents your shadow from appearing in the shot.

Camera Settings and Position

Height: The camera should be at eye level or slightly above. Below eye level shoots up your nostrils. Well above eye level makes you look small.

Distance: Place the camera 4-6 feet away. Use your phone's 2x zoom, or portrait mode on most phones, rather than standing close with the wide lens. Wide-angle lenses distort facial features. Noses look bigger, faces look rounder. The slight telephoto of 2x zoom is more flattering and closer to what a professional uses.

Portrait mode: If your phone has it, use it. Portrait mode blurs the background and mimics the shallow depth of field of professional cameras. It's not perfect, but it's significantly better than a sharp background competing with your face for attention.

Resolution: Shoot at the highest resolution your camera offers. You can always crop down. You can't add pixels back.

Posing

Turn your body 20-30 degrees from the camera. Push your forehead slightly toward the lens and tilt your chin down a fraction. Drop your shoulders. These three adjustments transform a snapshot into a headshot.

For detailed posing guidance by industry, see our complete posing guide.

Take More Photos Than You Think

Shoot 50-100 photos. Vary your expression slightly between shots. Look away from the camera and back. Shift your weight. Move your chin a millimeter. The best headshot from 100 attempts will be dramatically better than the best from 5.

Professional photographers shoot hundreds of frames per session. They deliver 3-5. The ratio is part of the process.

What to Wear

Solid colors, good fit, industry-appropriate. Avoid busy patterns, pure white, and pure black. For a complete wardrobe guide, see what to wear for a headshot.

Post-Processing

Minor adjustments make a big difference:

• Crop to headshot framing: head and tops of shoulders, centered
• Brightness/exposure: brighten slightly if your face is underexposed
• White balance: correct any color cast from indoor lighting or shade
• Sharpness: a subtle increase helps, but don't overdo it

What NOT to do: heavy skin smoothing, dramatic filters, significant color grading, or removing facial features like moles or scars. The goal is a polished version of reality, not a fantasy.

Your phone's built-in editor handles all of these adjustments. Snapseed is free and excellent if you want more control.

The AI Alternative

Everything above works. It also takes 1-2 hours of setup, shooting, and editing, requires decent natural light and a clean background, and produces results that depend heavily on your ability to self-direct poses and expressions.

Narkis.ai offers a different path: upload 10-20 everyday photos of yourself, no special lighting, no perfect background, no posing required, and the AI generates professional headshots with studio-quality lighting and composition.

The input photos can be casual. Coffee shop selfies, outdoor snapshots, photos friends took at dinner. The AI extracts your likeness and generates new images with professional-grade everything else.

At $29 for 200 photos, the cost is less than the phone tripod you'd buy for the DIY approach. And you get variety: corporate looks, creative portraits, LinkedIn-optimized headshots, all from the same upload.

For a detailed comparison of AI tools, see best AI headshot apps and AI headshots vs. professional photographer.

When DIY Works and When It Doesn't

DIY works well when:

• You have good natural light and a clean background
• You're comfortable directing yourself in front of a camera
• You have time to shoot, review, and reshoot
• You just need one decent headshot, not multiple styles

Consider AI or a photographer when:

• Your home lighting situation is poor (dark rooms, no large windows)
• You freeze up in front of cameras with no one to direct you
• You need multiple styles for different platforms
• You need results in under an hour

There's no wrong answer. The wrong answer is no headshot at all.

For a complete overview of all your options, see our guide to types of professional headshots.