Because you're a bro, I'll give you a little bit of big-time music business advice that is worth quite a bit more than what you'll pay me for it:
If you consider yourself a serious musician, a serious act, never let anything lame touch your presentation. I put literally hundreds of indy acts on the Manhattan garbage scow straight to the Staten Island Landfill because of lousy presentation.
Everyone in the business assumes your act is as lame as anything associated with it. Clueless picture/pose/outfit=clueless act. That's the whole crux of the R&RC site, right? You've already been dismissed as a clown act by the time anyone even hears you.
Guy, do a real picture, OK? Spend some time going through the rockandrollconfidential site to get a clear idea of what NOT to do. Find someone with a decent camera and a bit of skill as a photog and have him or her spend a little time doing some real shots. You're a solo act, so maybe you can do with finding a good spot in your house with nice indirect lighting, use an improvised fill reflector to tailor it for the most flattering effect and just do an afternoon's worth of classic promo head & shoulders shots, maybe with the optional guitar head sticking up in the corner. PhotoShop the best one to perfection. I say an afternoon's worth, because it'll probably take you an hour to get relaxed enough to do a good, natural-looking shot (check R&RC for a hundred or so examples of unrelaxed hilarious shots). If this seems unimaginative, it's not. It's industry standard for any solo act and a good photographer will make it show who you really are -- and also consider that on these websites, you're working with such a small picture that you get lost in some elaborate full-body shot. PhotoShop up a really good B&W version for newspaper reproduction for the "playing this week" entertainment section of whatever publication you're in or for display ads of your gigs. Do not -- I repeat NOT -- let your wife or girlfriend choose the final picture for you.
This is no-brainer stuff. It amazes me what a huge majority of musicians never give it a second's thought.
Good luck!
If it isn't slick, I'm not interested in it.
