Don’t Let This Beau­ti­ful Hot Weather Ruin Your Actor’s Head­shot
By Nick Gre­gan

I just thought I’d jot down a few notes on how this beau­ti­ful hot weather can affect your actors headshots.

• Firstly and most obvi­ously, drink plenty of water — and that’s a gen­eral liv­ing guide but is extremely impor­tant when we think of get­ting a new actors head­shot done. The water will help your skin to appear smooth and clear, it helps clear the body of tox­ins and reduce spots and dry­ness and above all else pre­vents dehy­dra­tion. So remem­ber to drink plenty of water in the week lead­ing up to your head­shot pho­tog­ra­pher session.

• Sec­ondly, drink­ing plenty of water in the hot Lon­don weather of the moment will help to keep you cool, an impor­tant point when you are on your way to the stu­dio for your shoot. Arriv­ing hot and both­ered will leave you feel­ing uncom­fort­able which may then man­i­fest itself as stress leav­ing you unpre­pared to have a head­shot done for some time.

• Thirdly, if you arrive over­heated and sweaty you’ll have to cool down before the head­shot pho­tog­ra­pher can begin to shoot. This is sim­ply because your pho­tog­ra­pher can­not shoot an actors head­shot when you are glis­ten­ing as this will show up clearly as shiny patches around your face. Worse still if you are per­spir­ing heav­ily, this will show up clearly as beads of mois­ture and ruin your actor’s headshot.

• Fourthly, another thing to think about is the photographer’s time. Some head­shot pho­tog­ra­phers run to a very tight sched­ule and arriv­ing late or not being ready to shoot when you do arrive can lead to rushed or short­ened ses­sions as the next client may be arriv­ing shortly. I believe the opti­mal time for a head­shot ses­sion is between one and a half and two hours for each appoint­ment. This leaves plenty of time for late arrivals, stress on arrival and in some cases a reluc­tance to have a head­shot done because of the ‘clas­sic’ actors fear of the stills camera.

I hope these few tips are of use. As an actors head­shot pho­tog­ra­pher in Lon­don, there is more hot humid weather pre­dicted through­out the sum­mer and fol­low­ing these tips could make your pho­to­graphic ses­sion more pleas­ant and more productive.

About The Author: Nick Gre­gan is one of London’s top actors head­shot pho­tog­ra­phers with over 16 years shoot­ing actors. His web­site at http://www.nickgregan.com shows his unique style that has made him much sought after. Nick’s Free ” 7 Secrets of a Great Head­shot ” is jam packed with tips and tech­niques for any actors to get the best out of their head­shot ses­sion. Sign up for free here 7 Secrets Of A Great Head­shot.

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What is the Right Actors Head­shot For You?
By Nick Gre­gan

As a busy actors head­shot pho­tog­ra­pher in Lon­don I’m often asked for my advice on ‘what is the right actors head­shot for me?’ This can be a del­i­cate sub­ject as often actors see them­selves in a par­tic­u­lar way. A clas­sic one is see­ing them­selves as younger than they actu­ally look, espe­cially women around the late twenty’s early thirty’s still believ­ing they can play much younger roles.

I men­tioned briefly in an ear­lier arti­cle help­ing the pho­tog­ra­pher can pay huge div­i­dends in the final out­come of the actors head­shot shoot. Hav­ing gone to the effort of choos­ing the right pho­tog­ra­pher, prepar­ing for and choos­ing what to wear at the shoot, get­ting your make-up and your hair to look right if that’s what you chose. Mak­ing sure you’ve thought about and done some research on the type of head­shot that’ll work best for you and your mar­ket — not sim­ply what you’d like to look like. Once this process is done it’s time to think about how you can make sure that you’re choos­ing the right shot for you.

Remem­ber it’s crit­i­cal that you pick the right headshot.

As I alluded to in an ear­lier tip, most actors head­shots need to show the actors as ver­sa­tile so as to open them­selves up for as many roles pos­si­ble. This means that your head­shot should be open, friendly and above all else it must look like you. Remem­ber we want the Cast­ing Direc­tors to be able ‘paint a char­ac­ter on you’ rather than see you in only one very nar­row role. That is of course unless you have a par­tic­u­lar ‘look’ that you’re only ever likely to be cast for.

If your dreams of the per­fect role are in the musi­cal the­atre then often a great smil­ing head­shot show­ing bags of life and per­son­al­ity is the one for you. On the other hand if you’re more of a ‘seri­ous’ actor aim­ing at clas­si­cal roles then some­thing with a slightly more seri­ous look, show­ing loads of emo­tional depth in the eyes would likely be more suit­able for you.

In the past when the only option was to enter a sin­gle actors head­shot into Spot­light or send out your indi­vid­ual 10x8’s you had to choose a shot that would cover all pos­si­ble roles. How­ever with the advent of the dig­i­tal age and numer­ous cast­ing web­sites you can now use a range of head­shots show­ing your ver­sa­til­ity. Spot­light is the old­est and best known among cast­ing direc­to­ries although there are oth­ers such as Cast­ing­Call and Cast­net where you can now add sev­eral pic­tures to your list­ing on their website.

Mak­ing that all-important choice is crit­i­cal to your expo­sure and who makes that choice ulti­mately has to be you, as you have to be happy and con­fi­dent with the head­shot you put out. Hav­ing said that, get a sec­ond opin­ion if you can. Ask your pho­tog­ra­pher what he thinks as in a lot of cases they’ll have years and years of expe­ri­ence with what works and what doesn’t. The other good thing about ask­ing your head­shot pho­tog­ra­pher is that they’ll give you a straight and unbi­ased opin­ion. You could always seek advice from other actors and friends, but remem­ber that this is your career and you must try to get objec­tive opin­ions from some­one inside the business.

Ask­ing your mum or dad or even your boyfriend or girl­friend can lead to dras­tic mis­takes as often they see you in a par­tic­u­lar way. Are you still ‘daddy’s lit­tle pump­kin’ or are you now a seri­ous per­former, and does your mum think that ‘you look cute like you did when you were a child’ in a shot and sug­gest you use that one? It’s usu­ally the same with your part­ner sim­ply because, as they have an emo­tional attach­ment they’ll also often see you in a par­tic­u­lar light too.

Remem­ber you’re try­ing to appeal to Agents and Cast­ing Direc­tors not the folks at home. It’s your main mar­ket­ing tool and you’re using it to get you work.

About The Author: Nick Gre­gan is one of London’s top actors head­shot pho­tog­ra­phers with over 16 years shoot­ing actors. His web­site at http://www.nickgregan.com shows his unique style that has made him so soughtafter. Nick’s Free ” 7 Secrets of a Great Head­shot ” is jam packed with tips and tech­niques for any actors to get the best out of their head­shot ses­sion. Sign up for free here 7 Secrets Of A Great Headshot

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