10. Restraint
Restrain your ego. Posting more photos of you will not give your clients a better impression. Too many photographs convey that you’re obsessed with yourself. If you are, then save all those photos for your own personal website all about you. Take it easy! One good picture of your face, and save the rest for a gallery. Also, restrain yourself from using a great photo of yourself that is now over seven years old. I met a healer once whose appearance shocked me because the photograph on her website was more than a decade out of date. Restrain the desire to convince the world that you are not experiencing aging like everyone else. (Having many old photos on a website is only appropriate when conveying a body of work, built over decades, from a person now an elder in their field.) Finally, restrain your ego from telling you that would be egotistical to have a photo on your site. Be seen.
9. Context
Keeping the context of your image and your photo aligned is necessary for any photograph you use on your website. Viewers can always instinctively tell if a photograph was taken for the purpose for which it is used, and it is unprofessional simply to choose a photo of yourself just because you like your face in it. A glamour or vanity photo taken for those purposes cannot make the leap to your professional image. Likewise, if you have a photo taken casually during a camping trip while you were very relaxed and happy, what comes through to the viewer unconsciously is that your private relaxed happiness is what they are being let in on, therefore it is what matters most to you. That might be true, but this isn’t necessarily a good thing, because it makes your identity as a healer secondary. And since your website has the primary goal of expressing who you are to potential clients, your photo should be taken with the express purpose of revealing yourself as a healer first, and as a good or relaxed or attractive or sexy or hilarious person thereafter, if at all.
8. Size
So that people can even read your expression, your photograph needs to be large. Generally, anything smaller than about 2 inches by 2 inches on a computer screen is too small to be of any use. And the photo must show mostly your face, or from the top of your chest upwards. Sometimes people think its important to show themselves in a landscape or under a tree. Those photos are fine for a gallery, but your main photo of connection must always be of your face, up close and personal.
7. Background
Background is terribly important, but is usually the last thing people think about. Wood panelling, a stark white conference room wall, kitchen cupboards, wallpaper in the baby’s room, the inside of your car -- these are all serious mistakes, it doesn’t matter how much you like your face in the photo. Nine times out of ten, a studio canvas backdrop from a mid-range suburban photographer’s studio looks cheap and phony, as does a colored or textured computer screen added after the fact to replace the real background. Highly detailed leaves and a tree trunk as backdrops are also far too fussy as well, and they compete with the face for attention. The best background is one that is outdoors, but somewhat blurry in comparison to the face, so the person should be standing a distance in front of the natural backdrop, not immediately in front of it. Also, the background should provide a contrast to the hair color. For example, white hair dissolves into invisibility against light leaves or snow.
6. Simplicity
Make sure in this photograph, that the focus is on you. Don’t include any props or extras in the background to help define who you are. Who you are must be apparent on your face. Save prop photos (the shamanic practitioner with a drum, the meditation teacher with a brass Ganesh, yoga master holding a flower) for your Gallery, unless they are absolutely stunning, and the prop is only a secondary player. Making this photo too specific can be limiting down the road, if you want to expand away from culturally-specific kinds of work. But also, props are props. You don’t need any propping up, you don’t need to legitimize your work with objects.
5. Gaze
The gaze should nearly always be even with the viewer, looking into the viewer’s eyes. This is essential. A gaze that is looking away is a gaze that is afraid or unwilling to meet the viewer on an assured and intimate level. A gaze that is looking elsewhere is saying: I don’t want you to look at me...or, I want you to look at me, but I don’t have to look at you. The indirect gaze says: I am free and powerful or shy and reserved - but in any case, I’m more into my own thing than I am into connecting with you, my client. A gaze is relaxed, and at ease. A gaze is not “an intense” look that might scare little kids. Don’t ever try to convey power or magnetism; these things are best conveyed by calm self-assurance. Go for a relaxed, calm, grounded, direct gaze.
4. Lighting
Avoid all flash photos. Don’t ever choose a photo where the light is so strong that the shadows it leaves on your face distort your features. A photo taken on a sunny day where you have to squint is useless. A picture in which the background is lit but your face is gray should not be used. The best day of all for taking an outdoor photo is overcast but bright, or under a covered porch on a sunny day. Remember, your face must be well lit, but not over lit. A poorly-lit photo of a person with a lovely expression is communicates nothing at all, and always looks haphazard.
3. Clarity
Never post a blurry photograph. Never post a photograph from a jpg file that has broken down over time. (The edges look harsh and choppy.) Stay in focus!
2. Expression
When we look at a photo, we get a particular feeling for the person. This overall impression must be aligned with the tone that best defines the kind of work you do. If you have cultivated a dignified body of work over the years, then it is advantageous to have a tone of authority and groundedness. If you work with children, the tone of the photo should radiate qualities of trustworthiness and openness. I know of a healer whose style of work is exciting, challenging, and playful. The photo on her site shows this exactly on her face, she is smiling and has a mischievous expression. It doesn’t make her look glamorous, but it communicates the tone of her work precisely. Another deeply compassionate healer I know has an expression of love and patience on her face, which expresses the truth of how she works with people.
Expression is important because we will only ever attract people who are in alignment with us. We can’t force the world to be in alignment with what we radiate as healers, we can only attract those clients who feel resonant with us. So the tone of our expression must match our work identities.
This is best reached by taking lots of photos and then finding the one afterward that best defines you as a client would best see you. It is less effective to try to take pictures, and try to keep a certain characteristic in mind when you make a face for a camera. Let it come through organically, instead.
1. Eyes
Your eyes must be open, they must have a light or a sparkle in them, and they must be easy to see. They might convey gentleness, they might convey mystery, but they must convey some degree of intimacy. They are the mirrors of the soul, and as a healer you have the confidence to let people in to see who you are. Open your eyes.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Answers to 1st Photo Quiz
Lilias Folan has been doing yoga far longer than anyone else, so she deserves a photo that communicates the authority of her body of work. Yet the cold photo introduced on her biography page is far too tiny to be of use.
Herbalist Brigitte Mars page features a colorful, effective, warm and welcoming photograph of her, although her expression could be more at ease. Connecting with her eyes is difficult, so the photo should be a bit larger.
Jon Bredal’s eyes are sparkling and his gaze is even. As a healer primarily working for children, his photograph conveys his warmth, liveliness and integrity very well, and its color provides a vivid contrast to the understatedness of the site.
Alternative doctor Christiane Northrup’s photo is a mixed bag: her squinched eyes are too small to connect with, yet her happy expression and yellow shirt are extremely upbeat and appealing.
Byron Katie’s website, like most big-name authors, prominently features her face. Her eyes are warm, her gaze is direct, and her casual pose is thoroughly approachable. The unretouched marks of age of her face wisely reveal her integrity and lack of ego.
Dream expert Robert Moss’s photo is too small to relate to, although the quality appears to be good. It doesn’t tend to add anything to his site, and struggles to be noticed among the extensive text.
Herbalist Brigitte Mars page features a colorful, effective, warm and welcoming photograph of her, although her expression could be more at ease. Connecting with her eyes is difficult, so the photo should be a bit larger.
Jon Bredal’s eyes are sparkling and his gaze is even. As a healer primarily working for children, his photograph conveys his warmth, liveliness and integrity very well, and its color provides a vivid contrast to the understatedness of the site.
Alternative doctor Christiane Northrup’s photo is a mixed bag: her squinched eyes are too small to connect with, yet her happy expression and yellow shirt are extremely upbeat and appealing.
Byron Katie’s website, like most big-name authors, prominently features her face. Her eyes are warm, her gaze is direct, and her casual pose is thoroughly approachable. The unretouched marks of age of her face wisely reveal her integrity and lack of ego.
Dream expert Robert Moss’s photo is too small to relate to, although the quality appears to be good. It doesn’t tend to add anything to his site, and struggles to be noticed among the extensive text.
Why Your Photograph is so Vital
A photograph of you on your healing website is absolutely necessary.
The healing arts are personal and intimate. Health and wholeness can only be reached when a feeling of trust and safety develops between client and healer. No client generally will let enough of their mask drop to allow true healing to occur, unless they feel comfortable, accepted, and safe with their healer. Sure, there may be those therapists who never really see the mask-free, unguarded client at all. Surely we have heard of celebrities paying therapists for decades, who never truly shift the core issues that created stress and trauma for the client in the first place. I am not in alignment with such healers. No person should have to become addicted to the healer in order to feel safe. In the presence of an authentic healer, no person should be capable of eternally creating ego-strategies to avoid actual transformation, forever playing the trickster to put off their own evolution.
(After that digression, moving on...)
I am talking about those healers who are interested in helping return wholeness to their clients. The healers of which I speak are those who create or invite genuine miracles with their work. All of them have something in common, which comes through in their websites. And it comes through not only in the words they use, but most directly and visually in the photographs they’ve chosen.
A reason for a photograph on a website, brochure, or business card is often misunderstood. It is not there so that clients can recognize you before they work with you. It is not really there so that visitors can shallowly judge your book merely by its cover. It is not there as a means of pumping yourself up to be important, an ego trap (avoiding this impression this is why many healers don't put their pictures on their sites).
We include photos for a much more elemental reason: because human beings generally only feel a heart connection to people when they can see their faces. Babies look for faces to relate to, in fact, the distance between a mother's gaze and a baby at the breast is the exact distance at which each other's faces come most perfectly into focus. Adults look for faces too, especially when they are being asked in some way to relate to a person in a vulnerable-making way. They want to see the face. They have to be able to trust. This only happens when we can look somebody in the eyes.
The most successful healers in our society have photographs on their websites, up front and personal, on the front page. The front page is the most effective place for a good photograph. It literally pulls the viewer in, and gives them the first experience of intimacy with the healer. Even the healers I know who are very private have good photographs included on the biography page, or in a gallery. It is essential.
Here are four websites of healers that feature their photographs. Some are effective, some are not. Can you tell how important a photo is in each, and what the photograph reveals about the person?
Lilias Folan – Brigitte Mars – Jon Bredal – Christiane Northrup – Byron Katie – Robert Moss
Next: answers to the quiz above, and The Ten Essential Qualities of an Effective Photograph
The healing arts are personal and intimate. Health and wholeness can only be reached when a feeling of trust and safety develops between client and healer. No client generally will let enough of their mask drop to allow true healing to occur, unless they feel comfortable, accepted, and safe with their healer. Sure, there may be those therapists who never really see the mask-free, unguarded client at all. Surely we have heard of celebrities paying therapists for decades, who never truly shift the core issues that created stress and trauma for the client in the first place. I am not in alignment with such healers. No person should have to become addicted to the healer in order to feel safe. In the presence of an authentic healer, no person should be capable of eternally creating ego-strategies to avoid actual transformation, forever playing the trickster to put off their own evolution.
(After that digression, moving on...)
I am talking about those healers who are interested in helping return wholeness to their clients. The healers of which I speak are those who create or invite genuine miracles with their work. All of them have something in common, which comes through in their websites. And it comes through not only in the words they use, but most directly and visually in the photographs they’ve chosen.
A reason for a photograph on a website, brochure, or business card is often misunderstood. It is not there so that clients can recognize you before they work with you. It is not really there so that visitors can shallowly judge your book merely by its cover. It is not there as a means of pumping yourself up to be important, an ego trap (avoiding this impression this is why many healers don't put their pictures on their sites).
We include photos for a much more elemental reason: because human beings generally only feel a heart connection to people when they can see their faces. Babies look for faces to relate to, in fact, the distance between a mother's gaze and a baby at the breast is the exact distance at which each other's faces come most perfectly into focus. Adults look for faces too, especially when they are being asked in some way to relate to a person in a vulnerable-making way. They want to see the face. They have to be able to trust. This only happens when we can look somebody in the eyes.
The most successful healers in our society have photographs on their websites, up front and personal, on the front page. The front page is the most effective place for a good photograph. It literally pulls the viewer in, and gives them the first experience of intimacy with the healer. Even the healers I know who are very private have good photographs included on the biography page, or in a gallery. It is essential.
Here are four websites of healers that feature their photographs. Some are effective, some are not. Can you tell how important a photo is in each, and what the photograph reveals about the person?
Lilias Folan – Brigitte Mars – Jon Bredal – Christiane Northrup – Byron Katie – Robert Moss
Next: answers to the quiz above, and The Ten Essential Qualities of an Effective Photograph
Why Having an Opinion Makes You Stronger
I’m not a website expert, I will be quite honest about that. But I can tell what works and what irks, with regard to websites. I can look it up and down and in just a few moments, I can say what it has going for it, and what holds it back. What leaves a viewer cold, and what heats them up with enthusiasm for your work.
Having an opinion, even a basic, shallow opinion regarding websites is far better than having none at all. That’s why, if you are working with or thinking about working with a website-maker to get your work identity out in the greater world, it helps to have a look around at what others are doing, to determine what you like or don’t like about other websites. Then you integrate the good ideas, and cast aside the components that don’t work for you. The foundation of your website is then strong, because it is composed of everything with which you resonate.
Use Google to scan words associated with your particular modality, and see whose sites come up. Then look at more than one. Write down what you like about a particular site. Keep the best ones in your favorites folder, to visit again. What colors appeal to you? What turns you off? What kind of font or typeset do you like, how do you like the letters to look? Which photographs or illustrations enhanced the site, and which did not? Did you notice or miss a logo, a symbol?
Then look at the site again, pretending you are a client, in need of healing. Would you visit this person? Would you give them a call, would you want to take their workshop? Do this casually, as if you are simply window shopping. It isn’t hard, and nobody is going to test you on this. Just lightly collect some impressions of the current state of websites. This is the first step to forming your opinion about what is going to work best for you.
By the time you get a site up and running, you will have the strength in knowing that it is crafted with the integrity inherent in your knowing what you want, and how you want to be seen. Never go to a website-maker without some opinions of your own. They will have a much more difficult task in feeling into the sort of person you are, and you could end up with anything that they think maybe defines you. Hey -- you’re paying for it, so make sure that it reflects you. A quality website reflects the quality you have inside. As within, so without. Define the qualities that you treasure.
What makes anybody an expert? Okay: a solid base of knowledge is vital. But I also suspect it has more than a little to do with simply having a clear opinion, crafted of solid and confident belief. The integrity of believing what you think. So, grow your opinions. Educate yourself a bit about what is out there, and your website will end up having a stronger, clearer presence that clients can feel and respond to.
Having an opinion, even a basic, shallow opinion regarding websites is far better than having none at all. That’s why, if you are working with or thinking about working with a website-maker to get your work identity out in the greater world, it helps to have a look around at what others are doing, to determine what you like or don’t like about other websites. Then you integrate the good ideas, and cast aside the components that don’t work for you. The foundation of your website is then strong, because it is composed of everything with which you resonate.
Use Google to scan words associated with your particular modality, and see whose sites come up. Then look at more than one. Write down what you like about a particular site. Keep the best ones in your favorites folder, to visit again. What colors appeal to you? What turns you off? What kind of font or typeset do you like, how do you like the letters to look? Which photographs or illustrations enhanced the site, and which did not? Did you notice or miss a logo, a symbol?
Then look at the site again, pretending you are a client, in need of healing. Would you visit this person? Would you give them a call, would you want to take their workshop? Do this casually, as if you are simply window shopping. It isn’t hard, and nobody is going to test you on this. Just lightly collect some impressions of the current state of websites. This is the first step to forming your opinion about what is going to work best for you.
By the time you get a site up and running, you will have the strength in knowing that it is crafted with the integrity inherent in your knowing what you want, and how you want to be seen. Never go to a website-maker without some opinions of your own. They will have a much more difficult task in feeling into the sort of person you are, and you could end up with anything that they think maybe defines you. Hey -- you’re paying for it, so make sure that it reflects you. A quality website reflects the quality you have inside. As within, so without. Define the qualities that you treasure.
What makes anybody an expert? Okay: a solid base of knowledge is vital. But I also suspect it has more than a little to do with simply having a clear opinion, crafted of solid and confident belief. The integrity of believing what you think. So, grow your opinions. Educate yourself a bit about what is out there, and your website will end up having a stronger, clearer presence that clients can feel and respond to.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Getting Hooked Up
If you’re reading this, chances are you are a practitioner of some kind of alternative therapy: a healer. And you’ve gone along for years simply relying on word-of-mouth for your client base, thinking that you don’t really need a website, and that you like to do things the authentic, no-bells-and-whistles way, anyway. And maybe your brother-in-law has shaken his head in disbelief at your wilful old-fashionedness, or the woman at the health food store has asked you once too often if she can have your website URL. You have clients, but frankly, more people need to find out about your work. Your schedule needs to be filled with more appointments. The word needs to get out. It is past time, some say, for holistic folks to finally get a handle on prosperity, and shed that improvisational making-do. It may be time to get a website, already. Or update the one you have.
We’ve been hearing for years that we needed an “internet presence,” to “keep up” with the “new technologies.” Bleh. What. Ever. Okay, okay: it’s true. But the fact is that most people involved in healing arts, alternative therapies and soul work have not been terribly interested in websites, browsers, SEO, and all that computer-speak that for some, is benumbing to even listen to. We are creative people, random people, people who go with our hearts and instincts. We’d rather devote ourselves to learning or teaching our craft, going to or holding our own workshops, cultivating our skills over the long term, or...just sitting in the forest. Most healers I know just aren’t that savvy about the new technologies, and they don’t even want to be. It’s a language we just never wanted to learn.
But let’s just say it’s time you had a website. It’s not so much that a website will drive thousands of clients to your door, en masse, all at once. But actually, simply getting your identity as a healer out there into the larger world is the point.
This blog is for people who aren't really interested in web technology. It will be simple and contain human speech. It will not assume that you already are into it. It will tell the truth. This blog is for folks who might could use a little bit more understanding about how to merge their idealism...with their identity...with their talents...with their world wide image. And how to make it shine with integrity and sparkle with attraction. That's all. It's easy. You'll see.
It’s no mistake that the Internet was born at roughly the same time that the first generation of plentiful, healing workers’ skills became ripened enough to enter service for others. The Internet is our medium. There need be no more solitary laboring away with the loneliness of being, apparently, the only one of your kind. All the healers all over the world are coming into contact with each other, and becoming available to each other and to clients. It’s one web of community. This connectivity is the beauty of the new technology.
This is why it was born expressing the (now no longer hip) metaphor of the "world-wide-web." It reminds us of the great Spider of Fate, spinning all the interconnectedness of life into being. And that is exactly what is at work here. It is no less magical and amazing than the most authentic, ground level, honest modality you could learn or teach. And there’s nothing to be afraid of, bored by, or ignorant about. We all have a place in this web of interconnected thoughts, the same way we have a place in the web of life.
So this blog is all about learning how to critically assess how you make yourself seen in the world at large, especially through this medium: the Internet. It is decidedly about merging commercialism with the heart and soul of your work. You wouldn’t be a healer if you weren’t deeply concerned and interested in the welfare of your clients and the world at large. And you wouldn’t be seeking money for your skills if you did not believe that it is right and fair to be able to take care of your needs in exchange for serving the planet. So here the two worlds meet. I hope you stop back and read this blog now and again. If you really get fired up, I’d be happy to make a website for you so the world can find out exactly who you are and what you can do for them.
We’ve been hearing for years that we needed an “internet presence,” to “keep up” with the “new technologies.” Bleh. What. Ever. Okay, okay: it’s true. But the fact is that most people involved in healing arts, alternative therapies and soul work have not been terribly interested in websites, browsers, SEO, and all that computer-speak that for some, is benumbing to even listen to. We are creative people, random people, people who go with our hearts and instincts. We’d rather devote ourselves to learning or teaching our craft, going to or holding our own workshops, cultivating our skills over the long term, or...just sitting in the forest. Most healers I know just aren’t that savvy about the new technologies, and they don’t even want to be. It’s a language we just never wanted to learn.
But let’s just say it’s time you had a website. It’s not so much that a website will drive thousands of clients to your door, en masse, all at once. But actually, simply getting your identity as a healer out there into the larger world is the point.
This blog is for people who aren't really interested in web technology. It will be simple and contain human speech. It will not assume that you already are into it. It will tell the truth. This blog is for folks who might could use a little bit more understanding about how to merge their idealism...with their identity...with their talents...with their world wide image. And how to make it shine with integrity and sparkle with attraction. That's all. It's easy. You'll see.
It’s no mistake that the Internet was born at roughly the same time that the first generation of plentiful, healing workers’ skills became ripened enough to enter service for others. The Internet is our medium. There need be no more solitary laboring away with the loneliness of being, apparently, the only one of your kind. All the healers all over the world are coming into contact with each other, and becoming available to each other and to clients. It’s one web of community. This connectivity is the beauty of the new technology.
This is why it was born expressing the (now no longer hip) metaphor of the "world-wide-web." It reminds us of the great Spider of Fate, spinning all the interconnectedness of life into being. And that is exactly what is at work here. It is no less magical and amazing than the most authentic, ground level, honest modality you could learn or teach. And there’s nothing to be afraid of, bored by, or ignorant about. We all have a place in this web of interconnected thoughts, the same way we have a place in the web of life.
So this blog is all about learning how to critically assess how you make yourself seen in the world at large, especially through this medium: the Internet. It is decidedly about merging commercialism with the heart and soul of your work. You wouldn’t be a healer if you weren’t deeply concerned and interested in the welfare of your clients and the world at large. And you wouldn’t be seeking money for your skills if you did not believe that it is right and fair to be able to take care of your needs in exchange for serving the planet. So here the two worlds meet. I hope you stop back and read this blog now and again. If you really get fired up, I’d be happy to make a website for you so the world can find out exactly who you are and what you can do for them.
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