How to Look Confident on Camera

One of the biggest questions we get is how to look more confident on camera. Some people worry that their eyes look too wide, others that their expression looks unnatural, and still others (especially people who look young) that they won’t project the confidence to enable people to take them seriously in their line of work.
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The goal with this article is to hopefully show you that no matter how uncomfortable you normally are on-camera normally, a few tricks can help you go from looking worried, anxious, and fearful to relaxed, happy, and confident!

There are two primary things to keep in mind regarding confidence:

1. The Mechanics: How the eyes, mouth, eyebrows, and chin work together to create a confident expression.
2. Your Mental Focus: How your thoughts allow (or disallow) you to look confident on-camera.

​Part 1:
The Mechanics

The Eyes:

​Your eyes are crucially important to capturing authentic expressions. In order to properly pull off a confident look, you’ll need to slightly squint your eyes, primarily using the lower eyelids. An easy way to do this is to imagine you’re trying to squeeze your eyes from the sides, and when you do that, you’ll start to automatically pull your lower eyelids up. This tightness in the lower lids automatically increases your confidence and can make any expression look more intense.

Be aware, however, that if you think your eyes look too small on-camera, it can backfire. By worrying about the size of your eyes, you’ll unconsciously try to make your eyes bigger or wider, which often leads to the classic deer in the headlights look. A better way to open up your eyes naturally is to look slightly above the camera lens - you can look at the top of the lens or top of the camera itself. Take care to ensure you don’t accidentally squint your upper eyelids or you may wind up looking sleepy or drunk!

The Mouth:

Did you know that your mouth can determine whether you look confident or worried on-camera? Many people unconsciously purse their lips when having their picture taken because they are nervous. If this is you, pay extra attention and try to avoid it. By reminding yourself to consistently relax your lips, you’ll avoid looking worried, anxious, or angry!

For the best type of confident expression, we recommend doing a very subtle, slight smile that reads as “confident but approachable.” If you laugh through your nose with your lips closed, you can get a tiny smile that will often work perfectly. Try to avoid having a completely blank mouth or the shot won’t look as interesting.

​Eyebrows:

Rather than focusing on what you should do here, we are going to focus on what to avoid. Watch out for the "look of worry” in your eyebrows where they can look like the following symbol:

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This subtle eyebrow furrowing usually happens unconsciously when you’re worried. I find the easiest way to get rid of this is just to actually feel more confident, which we’ll discuss in greater detail next in Your Mental Focus.

​Chin or Neck:

Chin or neck tilt is going to determine whether you look confident, sneaky, or just plain odd. Keep your chin slightly raised or slightly lowered, but never go too far. If your photographer lets you see the images during the shoot and you think you’re starting to too sneaky or creepy, it’s likely because you need to raise your chin up a bit higher. But if your chin gets raised too far, it will just look odd and you’ll almost certainly notice it.

​​Your Mental Focus

Mechanics are very important, but even more crucial is your mental focus during a photoshoot. My belief is that one can never have a completely realistic expression without embodying the actual emotion in one's body.

If you’re just beginning the shoot and you’re not comfortable on-camera yet, you'll want to relax a bit and laugh so you calm down and get used to being in front of a lens. Even though your goal might be to capture a confident, serious expression, you should try doing some laughter shots for the first few minutes until you relax and feel comfortable.

In order to help my clients feel more confident, I like to joke and remind them that, although they might not be feeling confident in front of the camera and all the lights right now, all they have to do is go overboard and pretend they are so confident that they’re feeling cocky. Do a few fun shots with this ridiculous, overly cocky look, as it will make it much easier to relax into a more natural confident look later. You can then apply each of the mechanical suggestions mentioned previously and tweak your expression as needed to get it looking just right.

I hope this article has been helpful to you! As always, if you have any questions or need anything, feel free to reach out to us at info@cityheadshots.com and we’re happy to help in any way we can.