What your photographer needs in order to provide you with a successful headshot session: Part II

Headshots by Vanie Poyey

This is a two part blog and Part I of this blog post can be found HERE.  This blog is about examples and would make more sense if you read Part I first.

To summarize Part I, a person’s attitude can pretty much make or break a headshot session.  A controlling attitude can stifle the creative process of a photographer while a trusting one can bring about the freedom to get more creative with exceptional results.

It truly does take two to tango and every once in a while, you dance with a partner that can do so exceptionally well.  Allyssa Schmitt (below) is a shining example of someone who had done her research and trusted the process of the photographer she chose.  Our dance was fluid and it allowed me to break out of the steps I’m accustomed to and venture into an exploratory and fun tango!  She had a great attitude, was sure her pictures were going to turn out well and truly embraced the process of getting her pictures taken with me.  Yes she had the same concerns as everyone else like for instance dark circles under her eyes but she was able to let go and have fun because dark circles are not something to fret over when there’s Photoshop!  Having her trust me gave me the freedom to play and from that freedom came some great spontaneous moments.  With Allyssa’s shoot if it wasn’t for the freedom she gave me, I wouldn’t have noticed the old car on our way back that then made me think of having her somehow use it for our shot, and I wouldn’t have noticed the wall we used for her edgier look for which we had to sneak onto private property!  It was a fun adventure!

I find that for the most part those who aren’t happy with the results for their session weren’t happy to begin with.  Having a negative attitude about how you’ve never taken a great picture and bringing that in on the day of your session isn’t going to help your results!  Showing up sick to a session and complaining about not looking good when you should have rescheduled in the first place, isn’t going to help either.  Complaining about how you hate the process, constantly stopping the momentum of a shoot because you are self critical, have baggy eyes, bad skin, or because you can’t make up your mind about clothing or feel the need to fix your hair after every shot will not only slow down the process but will completely deplete me of my creativity.  With such sessions I’m pretty much on auto mode waiting for you to be done fussing over yourself so I can shoot some pictures put down the camera and wait again.  That is not the way great moments are created and captured!  That is not a Tango!  When makeup becomes such a process that it takes two hours of changes for you to still not be happy with your face, then of course you’re not going to be happy with your pictures.  Fact:  In twelve years, I’ve cancelled two sessions for this very reason.  Regretfully I didn’t cancel a third which I should have.  If you’ve done your research, have studied your photographer’s portfolio which also showcases their makeup artist’s work, then when you hire him or her, you simply need to trust and let the professionals do their job.

The process of creating successful headshots comes from collaboration and input, not control.

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What your photographer needs in order to provide you with a successful headshot session: Part I

Los Angeles Headshot Photographer: Vanie Poyey

Speaking for myself, I find that my most  amazing sessions have a lot to do with a client’s attitude coming into the session.  I realize headshots are a large investment and that there is a lot riding on them.  And often by the time actors come to me, they’ve had one or more bad experiences, their agents haven’t been happy with any of their pictures and they are at a complete loss.  Regardless, assuming you have done your due diligence and have thoroughly researched photographers, once you make a decision, it’s important to trust your decision as well as the process of the photographer you chose to work with.  In other words, let the professionals do their job.

What I’m about to say can easily be misunderstood so I want to be very clear.  I’m not saying your input isn’t important and I’m not saying you shouldn’t voice your concerns or opinions. However, when  someone is overly controlling about every aspect of  the shoot from the largest detail to the smallest of details, it tends to stifle creativity.  Not only is the organic process gone, but I’m worried about making the slightest wrong move and failing to please my client.  I’m worried that what I do isn’t what they want so I’m extra careful to only do the things they ask me to do.  I refrain from offering my usual advise and typically end up confining myself to tight parameters which doesn’t leave room for spontaneous moments that make for great pictures.

Believe it or not a person’s attitude can become a self fulfilling prophecy and can literally make or break a headshot session.   The person who walks in with a negative attitude, constantly stopping the flow and the momentum because they are worried about what is going to go wrong because of what has gone wrong in the past, is very likely to walk away with pictures that don’t represent what I do in my body of work.  This is never intentional on my part but if I’m prevented from doing what I normally do how can my pictures turn out the way they usually turn out?  The person who comes in with a positive attitude, is free and open to new experiences, open to direction and entrusts me with the experience, will very likely walk away with exceptional results.

Part II of this post will outline some examples and show you the most amazing session of the year because of my client’s amazing positive attitude!  Stay tuned and share your experiences here!

Below are headshots wrapping up the last of the batch from 2011!

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Anthropologist Scott Frank talks “Headshots” and how Casting Directors interact with them.

Actor Headshots: by Vanie Poyey

Blog written by Scott Frank

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting with Scott Frank, an anthropologist who specializes in studying Hollywood, to discuss Headshots.  When I read the paper based on his research, I was fascinated to read about my business purely from the perspective of a study.  I was particularly fascinated by the section on Casting Directors, part of which Scott agreed to share here.  Are headshots really not as important as actors think?  Judge for yourself!

Hi there.  My name is Scott Frank, and I’m a professional anthropologist (i.e. I have a Ph.D in it), who’s specialty is studying how Hollywood works.  The following is an excerpt from a paper I presented last year at a national Anthropologist’s conference.  The subject of the paper was headshots, and how different people in Hollywood interact with them in different ways: actors, headshot photographers, and casting directors.

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Casting directors are, in a sense, unusual in that they are the end users of headshots, and ultimately the eyes for which the entire process of actors and photographers regarding headshots exists.  It’s also the least precise group – technically, it’s probably better to use the term “casting professionals,” because many people can be involved in casting – there can be several levels of casting directors, casting associates, etc., or for a small production, the producer or director might even do it themselves.
In any case, the first thing to understand about these casting professionals is that they look at a LOT of photos.  One told me that for a standard smaller film role, looking for, say, a 22 year old female, they might get 7,000 submissions.  Another told me from his experience on network TV, for a minor guest star role, there would be between 1,500-3,000 actors vying for the slot.
The method through which most casting in Los Angeles works involves a complex series of events, but almost everybody at one point ends up using one of the online casting services, and eventually using the physical headshot artifacts themselves.  Very briefly, for example, a TV show would send a script to Breakdown Services (which everyone uses); Breakdown will pull all speaking parts, make a description, and send it back to the casting agency for approval.  Once approved, the descriptions get posted online, and they wait for the applicants to pour in.
The next stop is the headshot-intensive one.  Casting professionals will scroll through all these hundreds – really even thousands of headshots for each role.  Each shot is either passed over entirely, or rated a 1, a 2, or a 3, a ranking of how excited they are about each prospect.   And here’s the part that I personally find fascinating – the way they select from all of those thousands of photos.  For all the time and energy put in by the actors and the photographers to make each shot perfect, to make it really sing, the initial answer from casting people I spoke to was “I pick based on impulse and instinct.”  When I started interviewing casting professionals, I admit I was hoping to hear some hard-and-fast rules, some strongly guiding principles for what they can tell is a good versus bad headshot, but truth be told, instinct is the only way really to do it – when you have to look at 7,000 photos over the course of two days, you can’t spend time really looking at each one; a quick glance and an instinctual response is the only way to pore through all of that data.  Because that’s what your headshot is to a casting professional: data that is supposedly indicative of something they need: a good, working actor.
When someone casting a show says they go with their gut when selecting an actor based on a headshot, that can mean different things: one told me that he flashes “when you can tell who they are in the headshot” – he says that means you can tell they’re a good actor.  Another said he’s flashing on how the actor fits the mental image he has of a character based on the breakdown description.
All of the casting folks say that headshots aren’t as important as actors think they are.  Which is in a sense true – the selection is based on many factors – but in a sense also seems false: the casting professional is zooming through hundreds of shots – the only thing they are going on at first is your headshot.  As one actor said, “all a headshot does is get you through the door”, and the casting professionals agree – after that, it’s your resume, and your actual ability, as demonstrated during a readthrough or pre-read.
The other thing that casting professionals seem to agree on is that somehow, in a way nobody is quite able to explain, in a truly great headshot, the actor’s personality – not just their appearance – comes though.  One casting agent said that this happens in .3% of all headshots.  At first I assumed he was joking, but then I ran the numbers and it makes sense: if you have a pool of 2000 applicants, .3% comes out to six people you’d strongly believe are up for the role, which sounds about right.  In a sense, it’s shades of the old saw – that a photograph really can capture your soul; or at least an actor hopes it does.

Oh, and by the way, the other final rule I discovered in my research?  Nobody – successful actors, agents, headshot photographers, casting professionals – thinks that an actor can pick their own headshot.  When you’re selecting which one to use, ask for the advice of other people you know and trust.  Speaking as an anthropologist, it’s not about which photo makes you look the best, but which one transmits your personality to the viewer.

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