Susan Jefferson

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is as important for photographers as it is for any other profession. I maintain and develop knowledge and skills through studying for further qualifications, exhibiting and entering internationally recognised competitions. Personal projects are a very important part of the process and at any one time, I can be working on up to three self-commissioned projects. Camera Unfriendly is an ARPS project I started working on in 2014. It explores the impact of CCTV on the individual and how makeup is used to protect privacy. The project has already clocked up two successes: a gold medal in the Southern Federation championships and highest scoring print in the league. Winter's Waif: Gold Medal portrait at SCPF Brown Sugar: Highest Scoring Print in Southern Counties Division. Selected for Regional Finals. https://www.studio-grey.net/peer-review-regional-success/

A friend of mine has been 39 for the past seven years. They aren't ridiculously vain nor are they delusional or prone to chronic wishful thinking. But they are useless at managing their professional online presence. Now, I'm not talking Facebook. That's Corporate Headshot regularly updated. Yet the same effort is not expended on their professional networking sites. So their LinkedIn profile sports a pixilated selfie taken years ago by a long dead 'phone and their company website portrait hasn't been updated in years. This friend is in regular employment and they're not actively looking for a new job, so why does it matter if their profile is out of date? Teamwork : 300 million professionals use LinkedIn. Even if a few are looking for a company that sells a difficult to find widget or service, that's still a huge number of potential customers. And guess what? Your 7-year-old profile picture gets featured on the company's LinkedIn page. Great: you've j...

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is as important for photographers as it is for any other profession. I maintain and develop knowledge and skills through studying for further qualifications, exhibiting and entering internationally recognised competitions. Personal projects are a very important part of the process and at any one time, I can be working on up to three self-commissioned projects. Camera Unfriendly is an ARPS project I started working on in 2014. It explores the impact of CCTV on the individual and how makeup is used to protect privacy. The project has already clocked up two successes: a gold medal in the Southern Federation championships and highest scoring print in the league. Winter's Waif: Gold Medal portrait at SCPF Brown Sugar: Highest Scoring Print in Southern Counties Division. Selected for Regional Finals. https://www.studio-grey.net/peer-review-regional-success/

Facial recognition software, combined with CCTV and increasing connectivity represents perhaps the greatest threat to personal freedom. The ability for a complete stranger to download your full personal history whilst you queue for a Latte is a technical reality. Facebook recently decided not to offer its  photo-sharing app Moments in  Europe because of regulator concerns over its facial recognition technology. Photography: Grey. Make Up: Hattie Florey, Model: Chloe Wainwright, Published: The Upcoming. But it is available elsewhere and not everybody plays by the rules. So how to protect yourself from unwanted intrusion? Camouflage make-up, designed to fool high definition CCTV cameras and software? It may be before a night out we don't just get 'glammed up' we also camm-up. Photography: Grey. Make Up: Hattie Florey, Model: Lewis Good, Published: The Upcoming. Camera Unfriendly  is part of an ongoing project to explore how camouflage makeup and fashion combine to complete a ...

It's a fact of life: people make judgments about you based upon appearance. So presenting yourself online is vitally important for business. Yet some executives LinkedIn and Social Media profiles leave a lot to be desired.  We've collected our favourite howlers for your amusement and education. We all know someone whose profile creates a wry smile in the office. Mr Incognito is perhaps the most prolific icon on business social media. Studies by LinkedIn suggest you are 7 times less likely to be noticed if you use the generic silhouette. But who is Mr/Ms or Miss Incognito? Are they just bad at Social Media - don't understand how to put their profile picture up? Are they computer illiterate? Not having a  good headshot  on your profile page could be doing more damage than not being noticed. But what is it doing for your company - and more importantly, yourself? Of course there is always a need to entertain clients but do you really want to advertise when it goes too far? Is t...

You never get a second chance to make a first impression which is why these regional firms took the simple decision to improve their team portraits. Punching above their weight? Always! Treetops Chartered Accountants are a North Hampshire firm serving over 1,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the region. Changes in staff and a variety of different photographers had left their ‘Our People’ webpage out of date and untidy. Calibrated equipment and carefully recording lighting and settings means that future portraits will have the same look and feel as the originals. LinkedIn is facebook for business people . It is a place where professionals can share insights and information. It is also an important ‘storefront’ for businesses. Many staff upload favourite images for their personal profile. Shots of staff playing beach volleyball, stuck into ice creams or fishing might be OK for Facebook, but for a professional networking site? Basware gave their staff the opportunity to have portra...

Making portraits of female clients is an honour but also a bit daunting. Women balance several roles simultaneously; sister, mother, lover, daughter, friend and of course professional businesswoman. It makes them complex creatures and a challenge for the portraitist needing to capture character. Creating a professional portrait is even harder. The image has to communicate professionalism without losing personality, capture elegance without losing authority. "clients make unconscious decisions based on your portrait." Despite our best efforts we all make unconscious judgements based on appearance. Recent Princeton research found that first-impression judgements were made in milliseconds and reinforced the longer portraits were viewed. You probably have a LinkedIn account: clients, employers and colleagues will be making unconscious decisions based on your portrait. So, for professionals of both sexes your portraits are vitally important. "identity can only provide clues...