A professional headshot at home, with your phone

The set-up

1. Light: stand facing a window in daylight, a metre or so away, with no direct sun on you.
2. Background: a plain wall or a tidy, quiet corner, a metre or more behind you so it goes a little soft.
3. Camera: the back camera, at eye level. Stand the phone on a stack of books or a shelf, or use a small tripod.
4. Distance: about one and a half metres, with the 2× lens if your phone has one. Close up, a phone lens makes your nose look bigger.
5. Timer: three or ten seconds, with burst or a series of shots, so you can take many without touching the phone.

What to wear

• What you would wear on a good day at work, a step up if anything.
• Plain colours that differ from the background. Small patterns and thin stripes shimmer on screens.
• A neckline that frames your face. A collar or a jacket reads as "work" at any size.

How to stand

• Turn your body a little away from the camera and your face back to it.
• Push your chin a little forward and down. It feels odd and looks good: it defines the jaw line.
• Drop your shoulders. Breathe out just before the shot.
• Smile with your eyes, or at least a little. A slight smile reads as approachable.

Choose and check

Pick the shots where your eyes are sharp and you look like yourself. Then run the best two through the headshot check: it tells you whether the light is even, the photo is sharp and your face fills enough of a round crop. A light retouch afterwards is normal for a headshot; keep it light, so you look like the person who shows up to the meeting.