How To Take An Epic Headshot

If you are still at the level where you require a headshot as one of your marketing tools, it needs to be good right?  Because it serves as your calling card in a big way; one that can pry open those tightly welded doors to the interiors of "the Room".  Actually good is not good enough for that, it needs to be Great.  It needs to be Unforgettable.  Hell, why shouldn't it be Epic even? Well they should be, and they can be, but so often they're just...okay.

Look, I am an actor as well, it is why I came to LA from Chicago, and it is what keeps me here. The desire to be 100% Pro someday...not just in ability, but in accomplishment.  This entry is not about that though, I mention it only to strengthen what I am about to say.  So that you know that I too sit on that side of the camera, in the waiting room, in class, in workshops, on "tiny little sets" (and no set is tiny), in front of the mirror talking to invisible people, in traffic doing my audition (usually much better on the drive home), on the phone with my Reps delicately asking why am I not going out more, Blah-Blah Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah-Blahhhh.     Point is I get it.

So back to that important gadget on the utility belt, the ol' headshot.  How do you get that killer shot?  Is it the photographer?  The camera?  The background?  The lighting?  You?  Well, it is all of that. Sure you should absolutely find a photographer who has decent to good equipment, a decent eye, understands light, and all the other stuff, but I am telling you this:  

If you don't have YOU figured out enough (not all the way, but enough), then forget it. 

All that technical stuff could be amazing and the shot would just be okay.  

Not to toot my own horn, but I know I am a solid photographer.  I know of the work that is out there by others, and I know where it stacks up against my own.  YET,  I will tell you this : 

Not All Of My Clients Get Epic Shots.  

Why?  Because they are in the way.  

They haven't 100% invested in believing in The Big Secret.  (No, this "Big Secret" does not require a Vision Board and you imaging a brand new BMW in your driveway).

Here's the Big Secret to taking an EPIC headshot.  Get the right photographer for you and then just Show Up.  That's it.  Just Show Up.  Nothing else.  No "doing" anything in front of the camera, not worrying about your hair, clothes, wrinkles, none of that.  In fact, start doing nothing in front of the camera on set and some day they might just put a statue of a little golden naked man in your hands.  

Seriously, look at the great performances of the last 70 years on film.  All of the Greats, the Pros...they all know how to work the camera in a reaction shot, and in turn, let the camera do all the work.  All they have to do is think it and we, the audience, get it.  What is "it" you ask?  "It" is anything.  Anything at all.  Anything real, honest, and true....and something true can be completely false and made up at times, as long as they make it real for themselves and believe in it.  Do you understand what I mean?  

See, if the story is working, if the director is doing a good job, and if the actors are already creating characters in their "performances", well, when it comes to that all important close-up reaction shot, the money shot, the work has almost entirely been done already.  They just need to show real life of some kind and we will do the rest as light glides across a 100 foot screen and we eat popcorn.  

And that is what a headshot is.  It is a close-up reaction shot.  So just sit there and do nothing, and allow yourself to have a real thought and a real reaction.  And.... it can be about anything at all...except, "Oh I hope this photo shoot goes well."  

Do that and you will be fine; if you picked the right photographer for YOU .