How To: Professional LinkedIn Profile Picture

Photo by Marco Xu on Unsplash

LinkedIn, the super-important business, social media networking site that most people are yet to see the advantages of. It's a great way to showcase your CV online. You can attach any previous work you've done on each job experience you've listed and it's an easy way to have your profile "out there". Perhaps the most challenging part of having a LinkedIn profile is the professional profile picture. Some people don't care while others have very professional photographed photos, distinguishing their profile from those who couldn't care less.

I have two options for taking a cheap but, professional LinkedIn profile Picture. The first method costs R20,00 and the second one costs R0.00 - maybe a bit of effort on your part but that's it. I promise these two solutions aren't impossible to achieve and almost ANYONE can achieve that professional LinkedIn profile picture without the exorbitant cost of hiring a photographer

Please note: I am not against booking a professional photoshoot but, this is more for people like me, who can't afford that kind of luxury.

1. THE R20,00 OPTION

This option comes with a bit of effort. First, you have to find a fabric store - I usually go to Metro in Centurion - to get yourself 1 meter's worth of material which will be used as your "professional" backdrop. Hang it over a clothing rail and sit in front of it. I always recommend taking pictures with your back camera - the resolution is better. You'll need to put the timer on and take endless photos within 5 minutes or, you can ask someone to press the capture button for you.

I managed to shoot the image below myself, with my outdated iPhone 7 and about 10 minutes taking pictures non-stop because I wanted a lot of options. This was my previous LinkedIn profile picture and it blended so well with the cover image. The magic lay in the edits to make the vibrancy of the image come to life.

2. THE COST-FREE OPTION

It puzzles me how in a generation that's overly obsessed with capturing every moment and accumulating an endless album of selfies, has yet to figure out this cost-free option of a professional LinkedIn profile. You know those colourful houses in Cape Town or like, the wall in your house, res, workplace or that neutral tone you loved in the bathroom of your fave restaurant? that's a FREE backdrop to have your picture taken at - the magic happens in the editing.

To show you guys just how easy and cost-free this method is, I decided to take a photo in our office, by the bright green wall next to the popcorn machine and mini-library. The image on the left is the before image and the image on the right is the edited one - I edit my images in VSCO. Since I'm within the creative industry, I feel bright colours are acceptable and would definitely convey a bit of my personality and reinforce my creativity.

Before Photo

After Photo

The image you take doesn't even need a filter, a simple saturation, contrast, warm/cold tones, and underlying tone is needed to spice. It's that easy.