Things Every Actor Should Know Before Taking Headshots

My name is Brandon Andre and I'm a headshots photographer in Los Angeles. So I wanted to make this post because often times I've found that actors do not know what they're doing when it comes to head shots and as a result they waste a lot of money.

The Purpose of a Headshot

The first thing I wanted to talk about was what is the purpose of a headshot. The headshot is supposed to be a photograph of you. Very simple, very straightforward and a headshot is used to represent yourself as an actor when you're submitting yourself for an audition or roll a good standard quality industry headshot has the subject completely.

What Is The Focus Of A Headshot?

The focus is the photograph, the background isn't distracting nor any of the clothes. You can see the actor and the actor will look exactly the same when they walk into the room for the casting.

How Is A Headshot Used?

So how is the headshot used in application? An actor goes on auditions for a role and they leave their headshot with the casting director for them to remember them for the role. A casting director is not going to be analyzing the image and see what photographer you worked with, how much money you spend and what the quality is of this photo, they're looking to see if you fit the role of the character that they're looking for.

Do I Need To Hire A Well-Known Photographer?

I think that actors tend to over invest in headshots because they think that the more expensive, the more well known the photographer is, the better likelihood that they'll get booked for jobs. I can't think of any actor who booked the job because they hired a photographer who was well known for taking headshots. A casting director is looking for a solid industry standard headshot where you can see the subject of the photo very clearly. There are no distractions in the background and the foreground and it just looks like the person that came in to audition.

Headshot Quality

It's really simple. People tend to really overthink headshots, so it's really unnecessary to overspend on head shots, but at the same time you don't want to under spend on the quality of the photo, just like any other business. Your photograph represents you, and it also represents how much you care about your own craft and your own career. If you bring me a crappy quality headshot that immediately tells me you don't care about your career. All of these other people are taking the time to invest money into getting the necessary quality of a headshot in order to compete with all of these other actors. And if you come to my project and audition for me and your headshot is crappy quality. That's going to tell me that you don't really care enough about your career to have the standard required headshot known across the industry. So it is important to hire a quality headshot photographer that understands the composition of what a headshot supposed to have.

Headshot Pricing

Should you choose to hire someone that's really expensive, or really well known just because their headshots are more fancier? That is totally up to you. But does that mean that by hiring or getting those photographs that that will make the difference between whether you land job or not?

My answer is no.

The only thing that's going to make a difference is your talent and whether or not you're right for the role.

Different Headshot Looks

People tend to often come back to me to expand on the looks, which I think is smart. They'll go out for certain character roles. So they want headshots that represent those specific characters. And so I think that's like a smart way to build upon doing more headshots. But I think sometimes people get too specific where it kind of limits what they can utilize the headshots for something that I tell my clients is that you want to give the casting director and team the opportunity to build up from what they see in the photograph. It's easier to build off of more of like a blank canvas than it is to remove something meaning going natural as natural as you can without over doing it. It allows the creative team to imagine what they can do with you for the more than a lot of ways to save money when you get your head shots for the first time or even when you need an update what I provide.

What You Get When You Work With Me

My clients get high quality photographs that focuses solely on you as the talent and nothing else. My objective is to provide you headshots that actually get your bookings because it doesn't do me any good if I give you head shots, but you never actually get work and that's why my clients love working with me because my shots actually get them more and it doesn't break their budget either.

My clients get high quality photographs that focuses solely on you as the talent and nothing else. My objective is to provide you headshots that actually get your bookings because it doesn't do me any good if I give you head shots, but you never actually get work and that's why my clients love working with me because my shots actually get them more and it doesn't break their budget either.

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Brandon Andre - Headshots Photographer in Los Angeles

If you want to check out more of my work on my website

Thank you guys so much and happy bookings.