kisha allure is a theatre actress in washington dc who wanted to take actor’s headshots. she contacted me on a wednesday telling me she needed to submit the pictures to a casting call in new york the coming weekend. we had to book the photo session the following day because time was running out.
we started the shoot late because of she had to leave her day job and traffic delays before she could get to the studio. before I even grab a camera I work to de-stress prior to taking a single shot. she has some angular features that can make her suitable for playing dramatic roles. to portray that, I decided to use mostly high contrast rembrandt lighting. as I was shooting more pictures, I was finding out that she had a wide palette of expressions. she could shift from neutral to serious to funny and sometimes even bordering on goofy. she had brought a couple of changes of clothes, so I was adding some variation to the lighting setup.
she showed she’s got good acting experience. her comfort level with the camera was excellent. I knew that I could get great shots by just letting her do her thing. since she’s more focused on drama than film so we tried to produce more theatrical headshots rather than commercial. she tried different poses, with varying expressions. I kept adjusting lighting setups and camera angles to get the best shots. all that combination helped create different moods, varying from low-key to high key. in the end, we had some great photos but we needed to make the selection fast. I had to process the image files overnight and deliver the retouched photographs no later than friday by close of day. the casting call was on the next day. everything went quite well. some pictures came out incredibly well and we both were very pleased with the results.
click to see more samples of actor’s headshots