“I Want to Stop Looking Like I’ve Given Up on Myself”: Why Senior Leadership Women Need Updated Headshots.
A client said something to me recently that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
She told me she wanted to stop looking like she had given up on herself.
Her name is Dr. Georgetta Parisi. She had just been promoted to Chief Operations and Performance Officer, and she came to me because she wanted photos that actually reflected the woman she’d become. Not the version of herself from three jobs ago. Not a quick shot taken at a work event. Something that matched who she is now.
What she said during our consultation stuck with me because I think a lot of women feel it but don’t say it out loud.
You spend years building a career. You take care of your team, your work, your family. You put yourself last because someone has to and that someone has usually been you. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, the photos you have of yourself stop matching the woman you actually are.
You’re not the person in that photo anymore.
But you’re still using it.
What Happens When the Photos Don’t Catch Up
A woman steps into a bigger role. A bigger title. A bigger seat at the table. The kind of position she has worked decades to reach.
And then she opens LinkedIn to update her headline and realizes her photo is from when she was three roles ago. Cropped from a conference. Pulled from a company directory. Taken in a hurry by someone who didn’t have time to make it look good.
The disconnect is jarring. Because the woman in that photo isn’t the one walking into the room anymore.
This is the version of the problem most women I work with describe in their own way. They tell me their photos feel outdated. That they keep meaning to update them. That they don’t recognize themselves in what’s there. That they’ve been putting it off for years because something else always feels more important.
What they’re really saying is the same thing Georgetta said. Their photos look like they’ve stopped paying attention to themselves. And that bothers them in a way that’s hard to name.
Why This Hits Different for Women in Senior Leadership
When you reach a certain level in your career, your image is doing more work than you might realize.
You’re being looked up before meetings. You’re being researched before decisions get made about you. You’re being introduced in rooms where the person hearing your name has already formed an impression based on what they found online.
And if what they found is a photo from a season of your life that no longer represents you, you’re starting every interaction at a disadvantage. Not because the photo is bad. Because it isn’t you anymore.
The women I photograph at this level aren’t doing it for vanity. They’re doing it because they’ve reached a place where the gap between their image and their reality has become too obvious to ignore. They want their photos to do what they themselves have already done. Catch up.
What Georgetta Wanted
During her consultation, she told me she wanted to look approachable, professional, and experienced.
That’s what every senior woman wants from her photos, even if she’s never put it in those exact words. To be seen as someone people can trust. Someone who has earned her seat. Someone you’d want to work with.
So that’s what we built the session around. Her story. Her personality. The new chapter she was stepping into. The kind of leader she is when she walks into a room.
When she saw her images for the first time, she said “Yes, this is me.”
That moment is what I love most about this work. When a woman sees herself the way everyone around her already does. Capable. Confident. Still growing.
If You’ve Been Putting This Off. You probably have a reason.
Maybe you’ve been in the middle of a transition and waiting for things to settle. Maybe you’ve been telling yourself you’ll do it when you have time, or when you lose ten pounds, or when you feel more like yourself again. Maybe you’ve just been busy taking care of everyone else.
Whatever the reason, here’s what I want you to know.
You haven’t given up on yourself. You’ve been putting yourself last. Those are different things. And updating your photos isn’t vanity, it’s an act of catching back up with the woman you’ve actually become.
The version of you walking into the next chapter deserves photos that reflect her.
Viviana Cardenas is a headshot and personal branding photographer based in Bridgewater, New Jersey, specializing in professional headshots and personal branding photography for women in senior leadership across Somerset County, Central New Jersey, and the greater NYC metro area. Learn more at vivianacardenasphotography.com.