"Where do I get a professional headshot" has four real answers. Which is right depends on something rarely asked first: how many do you need, and by when.
One: fix the photograph you already have
The only free option and the most underrated. Roughly half of the portraits people call bad are decent photographs with the wrong crop — too much shoulder, head too small, everything below the collarbone eating the frame.
Five minutes, no new photograph. Rule it out first, because if it works nothing else is needed.
Two: photograph yourself properly
Also free, and better than expected with three things right.
Distance is the one people miss. At arm's length, perspective enlarges whatever is nearest the lens and shrinks what is furthest — a bigger nose and smaller ears, which is geometry rather than the camera being unkind. Two metres back with zoom removes it entirely.
Then a window rather than the ceiling light, and a metre between you and the wall.
Three: generate a set
The case is repeatability rather than quality. Where results actually look real is the specific version of the question, and one walkthrough shows the process end to end.
The preparation that decides the outcome is not the tool: source photographs from different days, in different clothes, in different light. Fifteen from one afternoon in one shirt teaches the system that the shirt is you.
Four: book a photographer
Still right for one important portrait, and the reason is not equipment. It is a person watching you and saying your chin is slightly too high — the actual product of a session, and nothing reproduces it.
The full comparison of routes covers costs, and the figure that surprises people is not the fee but the two or three hours of travel, session and selection that appear on no quote.
How to choose in one question
One photograph or forty. For one, a photographer is defensible at almost any price. For forty across people who joined in different months, it is a scheduling problem, and a session does not solve scheduling.
The check that costs nothing
Scale your current photograph to profile size. If the outline of your head survives and your eyes are visible, you may not need any of the four.
