There's a kind of person who needs a portrait — and most photographers in Denver aren't built to make one for them.

Creatives and entrepreneurs are the people I'm talking about. Founders raising a round. Artists with a new body of work. Consultants who left a firm to build their own thing. Speakers, authors, designers, directors, coaches, chefs. People who are publicly the face of what they do, and who have figured out — usually the hard way, after one or two flat corporate headshots — that the standard playbook doesn't work for them.

You've booked the session. Now comes the part that trips up almost everyone: figuring out what to wear.

Here's the truth -- wardrobe is one of the biggest variables in whether a portrait feels like you or just feels like a photograph. It's not about being fashionable. It's about making intentional choices that keep the attention exactly where it belongs: on your face.

Here's what I tell every client before their portrait session at Draper Studios.