Headshot orientation: portrait or landscape?

For almost every headshot, portrait (upright) is the right orientation. LinkedIn, your company’s team page, Spotlight and most email signatures all end up cropping you into a square or a circle, so a vertical frame gives you the most room to work with. Landscape (wide) still has a place, though: website banners, speaker bios, press kits and self-tapes all like it. The trick is to shoot both in one session, so you’re not stuck later.

Below we go through where each one works, what to ask your photographer for, and how to avoid the classic mistake of cropping a lovely wide picture into a tiny circle and losing half your face.

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Portrait vs landscape: the quick answer

Portrait orientation means the picture is taller than it is wide. Landscape means the opposite. That’s all it is, but the choice changes how the picture feels. Adobe’s guide to portrait vs landscape makes the point that orientation can change the emotion of a photo, from intimate to more dramatic or detached.

For a headshot, that translates quite simply:

Portrait: feels personal and close. It follows the natural shape of a head and shoulders, so it fills the frame with you, not with a wall behind you.
Landscape: feels more open and editorial. It gives you space on one side for text or a logo, and it shows a bit more of the setting.

Here’s how that plays out in practice.

Where the photo goes	Best orientation	Why
LinkedIn profile photo	Portrait, cropped to a square	Displayed in a circle, so you need face and shoulders centred
Company team page	Portrait (or square)	Keeps a grid of people looking consistent
Spotlight or casting profile	Portrait, close head and shoulders	Casting directors scroll through lots of small thumbnails
Website banner or “about” hero	Landscape	Wide layouts need wide pictures
Speaker bio, press kit, event page	Both	Organisers often want one of each
Self-tape video	Landscape	The standard for video unless told otherwise
Email signature	Portrait or square, small	It’s shown tiny, so tight framing wins

Why portrait wins for most professional profiles

Think about where your headshot actually lives. Most of the time it’s a small thumbnail next to your name. A wide landscape picture of you, shrunk into a thumbnail, turns you into a tiny figure in the middle of a lot of background. A vertical frame, cropped tight, keeps your face big and readable.

LinkedIn is the big one. LinkedIn’s profile photo is a square, with a minimum of 400 x 400 pixels and 640 x 640 recommended, and it’s shown inside a circle. So the corners of your picture get chopped off whatever you do. If you start with a landscape frame, you’ll crop away a lot of the picture just to get a square. If you start with portrait, you have room above your head and below your shoulders to make a clean square or circle.

Same story for team pages. A grid of staff photos looks neat only when everyone is framed the same way. If one person is landscape and everyone else is vertical, the page looks like a mistake. We cover that more in our guide to business headshot formats, including the crops people usually ask for.

When landscape headshots make sense

Nobody is saying landscape is wrong. It’s just the wrong choice for a thumbnail and the right choice for other places. Here are the ones we see most.

Website banners and “about” pages

If you run your own business or you’re a freelancer, your website probably has a wide hero area. A vertical picture there either looks tiny or gets cropped awkwardly. A landscape shot, with you off to one side and a bit of empty space beside you, lets a designer drop a headline or button in. It’s worth asking for this on purpose, because empty space is easy to add on the day and impossible to add after.

Speaker bios and press kits

Event organisers and journalists often ask for “a high-res headshot” and don’t say which way up. Having both a vertical and a horizontal version ready means you never have to say no, and you never end up with your head chopped in a programme layout.

Self-tapes and video

If you’re an actor, video is a different world. The Actor Rebellion’s self-tape set-up guide says to film in landscape by default unless the casting instructions say otherwise, with a mid-shot from just above the head to mid-chest as the usual request. Spotlight’s self-taping advice also covers lighting, and warns against filming yourself against a window because you’ll end up in silhouette. Always check the brief, because some casting teams do ask for something different.

This is video though, not your stills headshot. Your Spotlight photo is still a vertical, close head-and-shoulders picture.

If you’re thinking about video for LinkedIn or Instagram, the orientation question is a whole different debate. This comparison of vertical and horizontal video is a good place to start if you’re deciding how to shoot clips. And if paid placements are on your list, the LinkedIn video ad specs and set-up templates show what formats the platform expects. Neither changes our advice for your still headshot: portrait first, landscape as the extra.

Orientation for actors

Actors have the clearest rules. A casting director opens a page of thumbnails and decides in seconds. Portrait, close head-and-shoulders, eyes to camera, plain and even light. We’ve written about why actor headshots differ from corporate ones, and orientation is a big part of it.

A few things worth knowing:

Spotlight is one of the main places UK actors list themselves, and it asks for specific file types and sizes. Check the current technical rules on your own account before you upload anything.
If you work as an extra, the rules are different again. Central Casting says that its profile needs a current headshot and a full body shot, and that it doesn’t mean professional photos, because those are often retouched. So don’t send the same image everywhere without reading what each place wants.
A landscape headshot can still be useful for your own website, but keep your casting profile vertical.

Our actors’ headshots page has the packages, and there’s more on what to put in your gallery in headshots in your actor portfolio.

How to frame your head and shoulders

Orientation is only half of it. How you’re framed inside that rectangle matters just as much.

Leave breathing room, but not too much. Some space above your head is good. Too much and your face shrinks in a thumbnail.
Put your eyes about a third of the way down. This is the usual composition rule for a close headshot and it keeps the face comfortable in the frame.
Think about the crop in advance. If the picture is going to a circle, imagine the circle laid over the top. Your shoulders will be partly cut off, and that’s fine, as long as your face and neckline aren’t.
Don’t stand square on. Tov Studio’s pose guide suggests angling shoulders 15 to 30 degrees off camera, with the chin slightly forward and down. It looks more natural than a flat, squared-off stance.
Avoid extreme posing. Fstoppers warns against turning the subject so one shoulder points almost straight at the camera. In a vertical frame, that kind of angle can look odd quickly.

What you wear matters here too. Alan Ranger’s UK corporate headshot guide suggests solid colours, subtle patterns and no big logos, plus layers like a blazer. In a tight crop, a busy pattern takes over the whole picture.

Crop, resolution and file size

Here’s something people get wrong a lot. They get a landscape picture, crop it to a square for LinkedIn, and then notice it looks fuzzy. That’s because cropping throws pixels away. A big original gives you room to crop, and a small one doesn’t.

So ask your photographer for high-resolution originals, not only web-sized images. We go through the numbers in our piece on headshot resolution, covering web and print. If you want a quick sense of the best looks for corporate profiles, have a look at our top headshot styles as well.

Our perspective: shoot both, plan the crop

We get asked about this a lot, and we’ve got a simple view. Nobody should have to choose between portrait and landscape before the session. You should choose where the pictures are going, and then we shoot to suit.

Our perspective: shoot both, plan the crop — overview diagram

In our sessions around Fulham and West London, we direct the posing and the framing so you’re not guessing. For most people we shoot the main set vertically, because that’s what LinkedIn, team pages and email signatures need. Then we turn the camera and take a few wider frames, with some space beside you, for banners and bios. It takes a couple of minutes and it saves you a reshoot.

The other thing we’d say is to think about the whole set, not one picture. A team of fifteen needs one consistent crop, one consistent distance from the camera, and the same lighting. That’s easy to do on the day and very hard to fix later. If you’re not sure how your picture would look in different places, ask us to show you a crop before you commit. If you’d like to compare standing and sitting, we’ve done photographer-led tests of that too.

— Emmet

Common orientation mistakes

Using a landscape photo for LinkedIn without checking the crop. The circle can cut into your hair or chin.
Sending a vertical image to an organiser who wanted wide. You look squeezed into a layout, and it can end up in a bad place on the page.
Mixing orientations on a team page. It makes a company look disorganised.
Cropping a small file. Quality drops fast.
Taking a selfie in landscape, then rotating it. Phones often shoot with distortion if you’re close to the lens. If you must use a phone, hold it vertically and back off a bit.
Forgetting the lighting. The way light falls on your face is the same in either orientation. Our guide to headshot lighting styles for business explains the options.

What to ask your photographer

Before you book, ask a few simple things. Which orientations will I get? Will you shoot extra wide frames for banners? Are the originals delivered at full size? Can you show me a square and circle crop of my own pictures? A good photographer will say yes to all of these. Our guide to choosing a photographer for an executive headshot covers more of the questions worth asking.

It’s also worth knowing the difference between a headshot and a wider portrait, since a portrait often works better in landscape. We explain that in headshot vs professional portrait. And for a LinkedIn-specific walk-through, see our LinkedIn headshot best practices for London.

Get both orientations in one session

If you’re a professional in London and you want a picture that works everywhere, our headshot sessions are a good place to start. The Single session is £99 and the Professional session is £165. We shoot in the studio or on location, we direct you through the poses, and we do honest retouching. Turnaround is quick, usually the same week.

If you’re an actor, the Essential session is £75 and Casting is £135 on our actors’ headshots page. Teams are priced per person, at £50 to £80, on the team headshots page. Just tell us in advance where the pictures are going, and we’ll plan the framing around that.

FAQ

Should my LinkedIn headshot be portrait or landscape?

Start with a portrait frame. LinkedIn displays your photo as a square inside a circle, and a vertical original gives you the room to crop it cleanly. LinkedIn recommends 640 x 640 pixels, with a minimum of 400 x 400. Keep your face centred and make sure nothing important sits near the edges.

Do I need landscape headshots at all?

Not for most profiles, but they’re handy for website banners, speaker pages and press kits. It’s cheaper to shoot a few wide frames at your session than to pay for a reshoot later. If you only ever use LinkedIn and email, portrait is enough.

What orientation do actors use for headshots and self-tapes?

Actors use a vertical, close head-and-shoulders photo for casting profiles, and landscape for self-tape video. The Actor Rebellion advises landscape by default for self-tapes, unless the casting brief says something different. Always read the instructions for each audition.

Can I crop a landscape headshot into portrait?

Sometimes, but you lose a lot of the picture, and quality can suffer if the file is small. A wide shot with you in the middle may leave you with too little room above and below. It’s much better to shoot vertically on the day if that’s where the picture is going.

Sources

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