Actors for Headshots: No Fake Eyelashes

Don't just take this advice word for word. When you are getting your headshots taken, don't bring fake anything! Don't do things that aren't what you always do because if you look different in your headshot than when you come in to audition for the role, it's over.

I don't want to be harsh, but I'm not lying when I say that a lot of actors I've worked with in the past have come to their auditions and looked nowhere near the same as they did in the picture. What false advertising!

I can stand how much it bothers me when that happens. I've directed a bunch of short films and a feature, and some of the people who came to the auditions looked way different than they did in their headshot.

Remember this: casting directors want you because of what you look like!

So if you look different in real life than in your headshot, you won't get the part. I know that a lot of you think that if you can just get in, and then they like your performance, they will hire you... But think about the possibility of that. You come in and look different than what they want, and five other people come in and look exactly the way they want. And you all do decent auditions. Now who is going to get the role?

Make sure your headshot looks like you AND captures the essence of who you are.

Your headshot tells a story, your story. If it's telling someone elses story, you won't get called back.

Where Can I Find Cheap New York City Headshot Photographers?

Headshots NYC - Cheap, Professional Headshots in NYC

This is an excellent question. Especially since you're in New York City. No headshot photographers are cheap though, right? Wrong.

There are plenty of cheap headshot photographers. So many out there are doing headshots for under $200, and that is cheap. Remember that photographers make all their money through their jobs. So that's why they charge so much.

If you shoot 3 actors a week and you charge $600 each, you are making $1,800 a week, which is a fairly standard salary. That's why you usually have to pay so much. But, on to the answer of the question:

So, where can I find cheap New York City headshot photographers?

1. Craigslist. Do a quick search and you'll find tons of them offering Headshots for $50 and $75. But I don't know if many are good. You'll also find deals there by professional headshot photographers. You might find a discount off the regular prices on their site, saving you a few hundred dollars.

2. Look in acting schools for posters. These are great places to find good, reliable, and cheap headshot photographers. A lot of them are just starting out and trying to get their foot in the door.

3. The third thing to try is asking your friends. Do you know any friends who recently got their headshots taken? Ask where they got theirs and how much they paid. Chances are one of your friends will have not paid too much and they can give you ideas. A lot of people wind up getting better headshots through their friends recommended photographers than by Googling it themselves. Always shop around before making an investment like getting your headshots taken. It's just good practice.

4. The final thing to try is to specifically determine what the word cheap means to you, and then google headshots that cost that amount. For instance, if you want to spend $300 on headshots, start searching it in google. Remember that there are a number of companies that will tend to appear in the first page or two of Google. They are the ones who have been in the industry the longest and will pretty much always appear if you type the word headshots, whether or not you are looking for cheap ones. They all charge over $500, which I think is expensive. So skip the first page of Google and start your search on the second one. You will probably get more relevant results there.


Thank you for reading my article.

Martin Bentsen is a New York based professional headshot photographer whose rates range between $150 and $300 for a headshot session. See samples of his work and contact him at www.cityheadshots.com.

Am I Missing Something?

Every day I ride my bike to class at NYU and I always hear the same thing. I walk out to the store and I hear the same thing. I hang out outside with my friends and I hear the same thing. What is it? Honking horns in New York City. I just can't understand it! It seems as though no matter where I am in the city, everyone is just as loud and annoying as they are everywhere else. These loud and obnoxious noises rattle through my brain, shaking the very fibers of my being. But is it just a sound? Or am I missing something?

Horn honkers… please think about others... Does it give you satisfaction to know that your horn is the loudest? Guys, does having a louder horn mean you have a bigger… horn?

Maybe I do understand... Maybe it's about being the cool person in New York. Maybe by blowing your horn more often and being more annoying and louder than the rest of the people around here, you win an award! That’s a possibility; I mean God knows, I've only lived here for four years, so maybe I’m missing something. I guess I shouldn’t be giving you advice on the matter because of that…

Maybe it's a call for help! That must be the big secret I’m missing out on. Though no gallant troop of cavalry ever galloped down to a car honking for help. No Gandalf the Grey showed up to wave his magic walking stick and blow all the cars away around him. But maybe I was looking the wrong way.

I guess I just mustn’t be that observant, because it seems to me that everyone is blowing their call for help, so I suppose it must do something... Though again, I can only speculate since I’m always looking the wrong way.

Maybe honking the horn is a call for God the Almighty to reach down his hand and lift up your car and pull it to safety. Maybe it's an instant escape that automatically gets you out of Manhattan, away from the rush hour traffic. Maybe everyone has managed to link their car horn to an emergency system so that a fire truck will come by and smash all the other cars out of the way. Again, I want to know what happens, but I’m always looking the wrong way!

Speaking of fire trucks, they truly have the loudest and most epic of horns, don't they? They come through town, blowing the shit out of the world. It's like giving a big middle finger to mother earth and saying, I'm God. Now listen to me! And then a magical wind comes down and all the cars blow away to make room for the Fire Truck of Glory to pass through and continue on it's way… back to the station in time for bagels and coffee.

I must be missing out. I have never had these magical experiences happen to me when I drive around in Colorado... Why? Why does my horn not call unicorns down from the heavens and magical fireballs to destroy all the traffic in my path? Maybe its because I drive a Ford...

But you know what? I’m one of those “if I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist” people. I believe that the only thing that happens when people blow their horn is that they piss everyone off... So I just want to say: Drivers, please stop blowing your horns! All you’re doing is annoying everyone! Now maybe that's what turns you on... Maybe you wake up fondling yourself every morning, thinking, “I'm really excited to piss people off by blowing my horn today!” But then again, maybe you're just an idiot. I won't assume one over the other, because I don't want to take a chance offending you.

I wish I could give you some advice on why to stop blowing your horns… but I don’t want to spoil your dreams and beliefs. I don’t want to kill that little glimmer of hope that you have… that maybe, just maybe, blowing your horn will bring Dumbledore down from Hogwarts to save you. You can be hopeful. Just know that in the meantime, every pedestrian in New York City will want to beat the living shit out of you. And who’s going to save you then? Not your horn…

Nikon Photographers:

Buy a Nikon 35mm f/1.8G lens! Anybody who doesn't have this lens absolutely needs it as soon as possible. This is probably the most useful lens you'll have in your kit, whether you are shooting on DX or FX sized sensors. Even though it is a DX lens, there is hardly any falloff on a FX sensor, meaning it will definitely be usable as a 35mm lens, equivalent to a 50mm lens on DX sensors.

The reason I say to buy this is because for $200, it can't be beat. It is very small and easy to carry around, and it is fast enough to really make a difference in low-light situations. Plus, it's value won't go down if you ever plan on selling it because it's a lens. Camera bodies go down in value, not lenses.

I would highly recommend it if you are a filmmaker as well because it works wonders with the Nikon d7000 as a standard all-purpose lens. Fast glass with the d7000 really let's you get down and dirty with low-light scenes.

Anyway, if you are a Nikon photographer and don't already have this lens, for $200 it's definitely worth it and will really take your photos up a notch.

Check out a picture from it and look at how blurry you can make the background!

Stella Artois Beer

It works with every Nikon digital SLR camera, and looks amazing.

Nikon Photographers:

Buy a Nikon 35mm f/1.8G lens! Anybody who doesn't have this lens absolutely needs it as soon as possible. This is probably the most useful lens you'll have in your kit, whether you are shooting on DX or FX sized sensors. Even though it is a DX lens, there is hardly any falloff on a FX sensor, meaning it will definitely be usable as a 35mm lens, equivalent to a 50mm lens on DX sensors.

The reason I say to buy this is because for $200, it can't be beat. It is very small and easy to carry around, and it is fast enough to really make a difference in low-light situations. Plus, it's value won't go down if you ever plan on selling it because it's a lens. Camera bodies go down in value, not lenses.

I would highly recommend it if you are a filmmaker as well because it works wonders with the Nikon d7000 as a standard all-purpose lens. Fast glass with the d7000 really let's you get down and dirty with low-light scenes.

Anyway, if you are a Nikon photographer and don't already have this lens, for $200 it's definitely worth it and will really take your photos up a notch.

Check out a picture from it and look at how blurry you can make the background!

It works with every Nikon digital SLR camera, and looks amazing.

Making Your Stories Truthful

Have you ever taken a writing class or met someone who tells you to try to make your stories truthful? Do you even know what that means? I'm of the belief that one who learns something recently is better able to explain it to others, because those who have known something for a long time will assume that others know things that they take for granted, and it makes their teaching suffer. (hopefully that made sense)

Anyway, for the lesson: I believe that making stories truthful means making them as true to reality as they can be. Now this doesn't mean make them boring, it means let what should happen happen, and dont try to control where the story goes. Do you know JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series? I believe in the sixth book, one of her favorite characters dies (I won't name the character because I don't want to ruin the story). She didn't want the character to die, but knew she had to do it for the sake of the story being truthful.

That is the difference... Making a story truthful means that you take a story somewhere that you may not like, just because somewhere in your gut you feel it is more "right" in the story sense. Don't take the easy way out by making a story decision that helps advance the plot in the direction you want it to go. Make a decision based on where the story should go, even if it's different than what you originally had in mind.

It's writing for crying out loud! If you don't like it you can always go back. But if you don't explore new possibilities and take risks in your storytelling, you'll never become a better writer.

I believe that the more often you take these risks and try new things, the faster you'll become better at what you do.

A Lesson in Teaching, if it's Not Your Profession:

I have to say that over the course of my life I have learned many things, and one of them relates to the effectiveness teachers have on their students. I'm not one to talk of course because I'm not a teacher, but I do want to get something off my chest.

For me, it seems that as soon as you fully grasp any new concept, you become much better at teaching it to someone else than any teacher who has known the concept for a long time. Of course the teacher may know some tricks and other ways of doing solving problems that you may not, but here's the kicker: because you have just learned it, you aren't taking for granted things that you have known for a long time. By this, I mean that you don't know aspects of something so well that you forget to explain them. And if a student asks a question, because you are so used to the concept already, you will likely not be expecting their question to be something so simple and so you might not respond with a clear answer.

Let me explain with an example:

In a class a few months ago, we were learning about how orchestras can be created with a single player when recording multiple times to a track for film music. The professor explained that one musician who can play many instruments would sit and record the same song with the differen instruments on separate tracks, over and over again so that they would all line up and play together, and it would sound like a full symphony orchestra. "Well," a student said, "how are they able to keep the playing synced to the other tracks?" The professor went on to explain all these details about click tracks, tempo, beats per minute, and how they can use advanced technology to slide parts over that might be out of sync. The girl said okay, but I could tell she still didn't have an answer she was looking for. After a little while, someone else asked a similar question. I knew what the students were getting at, and raised my hand. I asked about what type of headphones they use for recording. As soon as I said this, both girls said, "Oh, so they use headphones!" and I knew their question had been answered. Something so simple as that hadn't even been considered by the professor, because the question was so elementary to music recording.

So, I leave this on the table... As teachers and professors, of course you know many advanced things, and the basics are so far behind that you don't even think of them. And of course most students ask questions that don't spark the right answer because you don't expect them to be answering such a simple question.

This is why sometimes I feel that those who have just fully grasped a new concept can be the best teachers, because they don't leave out those most elementary of details, which are sometimes the most crucial.

I am currently working on a book about wedding videography that i hope can really explain every aspect of it, from the most complicated down to the most simple. Since I am still learning each day about this craft, I hope that I will keep in details that might be forgotten by those who have been doing it for decades. Therefore, if you are interested in wedding videography, I implore you to ask me question you have so I remember to answer them in my book.