Kirti Sivakoti, a lovely pediatrician affiliated with Intermountain Health, strikes a pose for me outdoors in The International Peace Gardens of Salt Lake City on a cold, damp day in March.

This is a style of headshot that many clients love and most headshot photographers find too difficult to achieve or too time-consuming to be profitable. The truth is: I love doing these and want to do more! They have come to be known in the photography industry as “cinematic headshots”, due to their similarity to how actors are often illuminated in movie scenes. This style of headshot is typically shot outdoors, usually in a park, using two lights and a 200mm lens to achieve that colorful, dreamy background which we photographers call “bokeh”.

So come on! Any takers out there for this approach? Of course, I’m still partial to how a plain white background really emphasizes someone’s expression, if you prefer that instead.