You are you.
Seems simple enough.
You laugh your way, stare off meaningfully your way, remember your grandma your way. Professional photos should be easy. Just be, like, completely vulnerable, and charming, no matter what happens.
Sure.
Even if you can (lucky you!), there’s a problem:
- Cameras are weird
- Most photographers are bad at helping you forget they’re weird
- No just turns on their authenticity
Obviously, we look like ourselves when we’re being ourselves. And that’s really hard to turn on.
Radical Authenticity means being yourself even though you’re in front of a camera.
It’s radical because being being authentic can be scary, and you do it anyway.
Here’s the whole process. You’re going to love how simple it is. I:
make you comfortable,
get you looking awesome,
distract you,
and click the button.
That part, the clicking. Actual time: 1/9000th of a second.
That’s how long you’re doing your you thing. Not two hours, two minutes, even a second.
But here’s the trick: we need the right 1/9000th of a second.
Office workers, I direct you to show your competence, confidence, and approachability.
Actors, we show your range.
Daters, we show you’re inviting, sexy, and fun. Radical authenticity makes you stand out everywhere.
And we make it easy. We shoot 400 pictures to delete 388. Sitting down to make a great picture is too much pressure. We get there by taking off the pressure.
As we go we pull our favorites, and I’m really good at spotting those moments.
Basically, if it’s really you, it’s true.
There’s a famous picture (by Yousuf Karsh) of Winston Churchill absolutely mad-dogging the camera (in his 1940s British upper-crust way):
It works because that’s genuinely part of him. It’s his cranky, self-important-military-bastard side.
And there’s a more tender guy in there, too:
You’d see both if you got to know him.
Of course almost no one did, but Karsh’s portraits let anyone know he wasn’t always in bastard mode. Sometimes he was a softie. The pictures let him own his image. You felt like you knew—which made him a far more effective leader—even if you never even shook his hand.
Radical authenticity is creating images of your true self.
The part only your trusted people normally see. The part you need to let out so hiring managers, casting directors, and dating prospects will trust you.
Sound good?