Client Shoot - Ellie
Cranefield, R. 2024
At the end of summer 2024 I had the pleasure of working with a young actor call Ellie to create a series of headshots that she can use for upcoming applications to agents and drama schools.
Actors headshot sessions are always interesting as there is scope to capture the person themselves but the session is also a space for the sitter to experiment, to play with character and emotion to create a series of images that go beyond ‘this is what i look like’ and venture into realms of ‘this is who i can be’.
By chance, a few days before the shoot with Ellie, I was at the National Portrait Gallery and was really struck by this series of images taken by Lorenzo Agius of actress Thandiwe Newton.
Agius, Lorenzo. “Thandiwe Newton” National Portrait Gallery, 6 August 2007. Viewed 6 Sept. 2024.
Agius is more famously known for his gritty, Avendon inspired photos for the posters of mid-ninties film Trainspotting, but it was this series of images, mocked up to look like a perfect contact sheet, that really took my eye while grabbing lunch in the basement of the NPG.
These photos of Newton were shot in 2007 for a 17 page editorial in Rubbish magazine and probably show too much emotion for a basic actors headshot, but is absolutley the direction a shoot should go once the more basic shots are in the bag.
This time for experimentation is a crucial part of an actors headshot session and for that reason I don’t restrict my sessions to a particular length of time. Placing a limit of one-hour on a session is, to my mind, an uneccessary creative constraint. Young actors in partcular might find easing into a session takes time; photo shoots can be duanting experiences for even more seasoned sitters. A photo shoot is a collaboration between the photographer to it’s better to just let things run their course, to allow both parties to be comfortable with the work being made.
As well as removing time constraints I typically shoot actor headshots in my ‘Kitchen Studio’. A wide open space at the back of my house, it is a more relaxed environment than a regular white box studio, with rooms for changing, chilling out, and coffee and tea always on the go.
I shot Ellie on some simple backgrounds, first white then black. These are all that are needed for a traditional crop headshot. Some playful colour treatment in post-production yielded what I feel are some beautifully simple images of Ellie.
Ellie’s mum was present for the duration of the shoot and left a lovely review of their experience…
“Rich was very professional from the initial correspondence to the day of the photo shoot.
He made the whole process very relaxed, fun and seamless, sharing lots of tips and advice.
We received our proofs the same day and correspondence has been amazing since, with choosing our particular headshots.
We highly recommend Rich and will be referring him to family and friends and will definitely use him again if required in the future.”
Learn More…
If you’d like to dig further into the references cited in this blog post then check out these links:
An original of the Agius print can be found in the basement of the National Portrait Gallery or can be seen online here. If you’ve got $90 to spare you can buy a copy of the Rubbish magazine that Thandiwe Newton appeared in here.
If you’ve not heard of Agius before you’ll have certainly seen his photography, there’s a short article about shooting the Trainspotting posters here. Those posters were inspired by the work of photographer Richard Avedon, you can check out his incredbile work here.
Reference list
Agius, L. (2007). Thandiwe Newton. [Digital Bromide Print] National Portrait Gallery. Available at: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw137627/Thandie-Newton?LinkID=mp14147&rNo=0&role=art [Accessed 6 Sep. 2024].
Agius, L. (2017). Choose life: Shooting Trainspotting. [online] theweek. Available at: https://theweek.com/81203/choose-life-shooting-trainspotting.
Avedon, R. (2014). The Richard Avedon Foundation. [online] The Richard Avedon Foundation. Available at: https://www.avedonfoundation.org/the-work.
magazine canteen. (2024). Rubbish Magazine 2 - Thandie Newton Lily Cole. [online] Available at: https://magazinecanteen.com/products/rubbish-magazine-2-thandie-newton-lily-cole [Accessed 28 Oct. 2024].