A session with Richard – A Melbourne Actor!

I loved working with Richard.

He is such a patient and easygoing guy. On top of that, he is kind and funny too. It was more like photographing an old friend than anything else.

Richard is an actor who wanted to update his actor headshots to something a little more current. He brought along a few different outfits, and we explored both outdoor and studio options, shooting until we felt like we had achieved a range of images for Richard to use in his acting headshot library.

What made the shoot was Richard’s ability to snap in and out of expressions. He generally plays the laid back nice guy, but we worked with some other personas too, using outfit, location and expression to vary everything up.

Shots Outdoors:

We had an amazing spring day to work with, and started outside. We set out exploring the greenery around my studio. There are open paddocks here, as well as dense bushland. So I took Richard to some of my favourite spots for his first look. One was alive with purple flowers at this time of year. It’s a ground cover vine that looks quite beautiful when blurred out with bokeh. A shot from this location was one of Richard’s final choices, which you can see above.

Our second look outdoors was shot in a couple of spots around my studio – exploring texture in the background more than anything. We used the colours of the fence by my studio as a bit of a rustic textured backdrop. It worked quite well for the shirt richard was wearing – with similar colours. We also used the outside of the studio – which is an old Nissan Hut. It has a ribbed surface, so creates interesting texture.

After this, Richard switched up his outfit and went for more of a ‘middle manager business’ character. I laughed when Richard described this. Perhaps it was because I was in the middle of rewatching The Office? This was our final outside look, and he brought out this amazing purple shirt and pointed to the greenery of a nearby shed. The colours worked well together, and he ended up picking two solid images from this look:

Shots in the Studio:

We finished up outside and so we jumped into the studio to achieve a few looks. Richard was patient while I set up and tweaked the lighting. We started with his purple shirt, middle-manager look, and then re-visited his first outfit. We again explored a range of looks and emotions.

I love this shot of Richard smiling here. It is so genuine and full of life. We shot this with a very pale grey, almost white, background, but I toned it in post to see how it would work. I felt it really worked – but that’s just me – I love colour and cohesion.

After this, we did some fun ones. This last part of our shoot really showed Richard’s great sense of humor. I had brought Cheezels along to our shoot, as Richard had confessed his love for Cheezels in our pre-session chat. I send out an optional survey and Richard was kind enough to complete it – opening up and telling me about himself.

Richard had this brilliant, bright patterned shirt and in his mind he had already picked out my bright orange backdrop. It was all just a happy coincidence that the Cheezels were there, as it allowed Richard to bring out his inner comedian self. This is one of the results of what followed:

I had an amazing actor headshot session with Richard.

It really is about what you make of it. Richard turned up with ideas, patience, and an open mind, willing to explore a range of indoor and outdoor options. He had fun with it, we laughed, he did a superb fake laugh for some of the shots (only as actors do – right?!), and there were alot of Cheezels. In the end, we had a wide range of images to select from, and Richard had a poorly exposed Instax image of himself with a Cheezle in his mouth.

If you’d like to update your actor headshots, check out my folio, and read more about my featured shoots and headshot advice.
When you’re ready to go, book your session online!

Related Tag: Headshots Melbourne