New Headshots

Having signed with a commercials agent recently I was encouraged to get some new headshots taken. Now if you're anything like as cynical me, alarm bells should be sounding around about this time. My current headshots were a little 'theatrical' apparently. I decided to do a bit of research and see what my contemporaries were sporting in the way of promotional shots to see if there was any credence to this view, or whether they were just looking to re-brand me (not as painful as it sounds). A month or two prior to my coming over to LA I'd had some headshots taken by an excellent photographer in conjunction with a shoot my girlfriend and I did for Cosmopolitan Magazine: and seeing as I was quite happy with these (my first techni-colour headshots (which is how they do them over here)) - I was reluctant to bite the bullet on some new ones.


I took a gander at the sort of looks everyone else had. Well, they all had more than one shot for starters and showed a variety of styles which I guess gives them scope for a wider variety of roles. Also, they seemed to be much less serious in expression than any of those I'd had taken, or seen among my industry friends in the UK, so it seems, to use the vernacular, "it's a totally different ball game out here." This was reinforced by my manager who told me to make sure that whatever looks I was hoping to achieve for my new commercial representation, I ought to get a few 'looks' in the leading man mould while I was at it.

I was given a long list of reputable photographers within the industry, so I set about critiquing all of their portfolios for something that I aspired to or appreciated stylistically: their use of lighting, their choice of backdrop, composition, whether they made a distinction between commercial shots and theatrical ones, and of course their price range. I saw a familiar face on one of their websites so asked my mate what he thought of the guy who'd taken his:

"Oh he's great. He'll make you look Like a 9! Not the 4 you are!!"

Praise indeed. I didn't actually go with this guy in the end. It's a very personal and subjective process and I wanted to make damn sure that I didn't saddle myself with anything I wasn't going to be happy with. In this way, Headshots are like a form of marriage: all too often people don't know what they're signing up for. And, to stretch the metaphore, it's really something you only wanna do once. Or at least with a few years gap inbetween.

Most photographers in L.A. set their prices based on the number of 'looks' (changes of clothes) you go for and give you a 10" x 8" for each one (charging for post-shoot re-touches on top). So it's an expensive business and everything can stack up. But, It's also a necessary tool - your first form of marketing in the brand that is 'you' - Yep! Before your demo reel and before your résumé, it's the first point of contact and the first hurdle. I know that I'm preaching like a "how to approach acting as a business" book but this much makes sense to me. So for whatever reasons (and the inherent narcissism that all actors profess to deny aside) you want them to be as good as they can be, so I deemed them worth paying a little more for.

I took a load of screen grabs of the sorts of shots I was hoping to recreate and ran them past my new agent to check we were all on the same page. I had nightmares of... (and these nightmares are figurative you understand - I sleep like a baby) so ...yeah, figurative nightmares about being really happy with the shots, telling the photographer so, and then having to backtrack when they were vetoed by the 'top brass.' Thankfully this wasn't to be.

I decided on Peter Konerko (who had great shots and a really smart website too which didn't hurt) and cannot recommend him highly enough to anyone considering a similar shoot. He took a great variety of shots; theatrical and commercial with backdrops that suited each different styling and, instead of constraining the shoot by charging per look, we discussed what we aimed to get out of it and worked until we'd got it. He even recreated exactly, the shot I was most hoping to get, and I'm pleased to say this is the one my manager has chosen to front my profile on all LA casting formats.