How about image number two, what do you think is he a little over the top or is her right on target? Let me know your thoughts.
The question to ask yourself are you serious about getting out there and making it happen, if you don't believe in yourself no one else will.
This week I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Tiara a working actress here in Los Angeles, that needed to update her headshot, so her manager reached out to me and here are some of my favorite shots for our session. Working with actors is the best! They are always ready to work, and can show me different sides of their personality on command, it's like flipping a light switch, and Tiara just went to work, she took my direction when needed and she allowed me to capture her persona fully. And we were able to get some amazing shots of her. The other thing I love about working actors is that they know how important a quality professional headshots are to their career.
Just this week I received an inquiry from a potential client, who made the statement, "I'm just calling to see if you can beat the other photographer's price" OK, I promise this will not be one of those rants about how so many people come to LA looking to break into Hollywood with their $50 headshots. OK, just a little one. Guys it's so important to do this right, your headshot is your calling card, it's the first thing casting directors see when making a decesion about who gets the role. This part of my baby rant is the most important take away. If your headshot look cheaply done or as if you put very little effort into them, many casting directors will say, if your not serious about the quality or the headshots, then your not a serious actor.
Here we are in a New Year were does the time go? One minute it's January 2013 next thing ya know it's January 2014. Well Happy belated 2014!
So now you have taken that amazing acting headshot and you're ready to print but the photographer took the headshot in the landscape orientation. Oh Oh! What do you do? Have it printed in landscape or crop to the portrait orientation? Your acting coach says "dont print in landscape you kill yourseeeeeelf!" Maybe she didn't say you'll kill yourself but it was something close to that. So do you take her advice and crop and print in portrait style. Was that wrong? Should you have done it in landscape? The answer is either is fine, currently there are tons of modern photographers capturing and printing acting headshots in landscape, as well as tons of old school photogs capturing actor headshot in portrait. So what does this all mean, are the casting directors getting confused and setting fire to the landscape shots? No, remember the casting director has a job to do if the shot is a shot of an actor that they are looking to cast, they are not saying man if this guy would have printed in portrait I would have given him the job, but because this headshot is in landscape I hate it! "and were is my lighter" My belief is like many things in photography it can be very subjective. My advice would be get the best shot of yourself with a quality photographer, and the rest will take care of itself.
written by Kerry James