Actor headshot portrait

Joe Jenkins · Apr 15, 2020

Nice one...!

And what about the Actor Headshots.

Granddad · Apr 15, 2020

Joe Jenkins said:
Nice one...!

And what about the Actor Headshots.

Welcome to the forum Joe.
On this forum it's customary to start your own thread for your own pictures. Each person's images have their own thread so that they can receive feedback/comments and criticism without everything getting confused. Your mistake is understandable and won't be the first so don't be offended. Your image deserves nothing less than our undivided attention.

tirediron · Apr 15, 2020

Spot on, GD - moved image to it's own thread.

Designer · Apr 15, 2020

Joe Jenkins said:
And what about the Actor Headshots.

Hi, Joe! Welcome to the forums!

My comments; you have a very thin DOF (way too thin, IMO), and the frame should be higher to include the top of his head. Also; why are his pupils so wide?

Space Face · Apr 15, 2020

I like the shallow depth of field, it works well imo. As for the top of the head missing, that seems to be acceptable in portraiture and is very common.

The eyes are an intrigue. Looking closer the pupils are normal, he has dark brown eyes (and possibly has contacts in). The darkness in this area makes it look like the pupils are larger than they are but they are normal.

I find the lighting on the face very pleasing and the skin texture is very good, certainly compared to some of the OTT PP you see on skin, making it look like plastic.

All in all I think it's a very pleasing take.

Derrel · Apr 15, 2020

The big, black pupils are distressing to me. If I were a casting director, I'd want to see his eye color. It looks like he is wearing contact lenses and like he was in a very dark room and that the photo was lit by speedlights. This is an area which I am acutely aware of,and I have written many posts about over the past decade. I'd like to see eye color, not black pupil.

Space Face · Apr 15, 2020

Derrel said:
The big, black pupils are distressing to me.

The pupils are normal. See what I wrote above, it's just the darkness of the area and his brown irises that make it look that way.

Derrel · Apr 15, 2020

Whatever the reason,he has what is known as heroin eye, or cow eye.... big black pupil area, with almost no eye color visible... this looks unnatural except inside of a dimly lit area.

Space Face · Apr 15, 2020

Perhaps so as I said but it's not the pupil.

Derrel · Apr 15, 2020

And as I said, whatever the reason,he has "cow eyes". It does not matter what the reason is, the fact remains his eyes look messed up, and as such it is not what one should look like in an actor headshot or a portrait .

I will say it yet again for a third time , so it makes sense to you,no matter what the reason is, his eyes do not look normal or natural, and the predominant color is black.

Designer · Apr 15, 2020

Besides the missed focus and weird eyes, the frame is not only too high, but off balance as well. Why did you frame is face off center, when the face is the subject? Too much dark relative to the light areas, and this is not a "low key" shot.

I say try again.

Designer · Apr 15, 2020

I had a look at your portfolio. Framing them off center and cropping their hair is your "style". Well, as long as you get clients who don't care, then more power to you.

SquarePeg · Apr 15, 2020

The eyes could be dodged a bit, IMO, so you can see the eye color vs the pupil. You can just barely make it out if you zoom in. Looks like contacts are adding to the glassy eyed look. I like the lighting on the face otherwise. I don’t usually mind the top of the head being cropped on a close up but in this one, there is a lot of room at the bottom so it looks a bit off. Also shirt wrinkles/folds draw the eye away from the face. All in all though a good portrait that either needs a bit more editing or is just not to everyone‘a taste.

DanOstergren · Apr 15, 2020

I'll start by saying that despite it's very few/minor flaws, I think this is a really great headshot. My biggest passion in photography is photographing actors, and my primary income is actor's headshots and portraits. I'm not claiming to be an authority on this, just letting you know where my notes are coming from.

The retouching, if you did any, is really clean and realistic. I'm going to assume there was some dodging and burning done, but if this is the case you kept it so minimal that I'm sitting here wondering if it was retouched at all, and for that exact reason you did an amazing job retouching, if you did any lol. I find myself wishing I had this level of restraint on my own retouching. Or, he has ridiculously even skin tone naturally.

The lighting is good. If you were trying to get a headshot specifically for cable-tv/streaming casting auditions, the lighting makes great sense for the shot and translates well for that purpose. This is just personal taste, but I would have considered putting a silver reflector below his face, because I personally prefer to have two catch-lights in the eyes for the majority of my own portraits and headshots.

As Derrell pointed out, the all-black eyes are jarring, and this to me is one of the few flaws this image has, but it can be fixed. Yes, perhaps this is how the camera caught his eyes naturally, and I see the merit to keeping natural details. That being said, I'm going to assume the actor has brown eyes, not black eyes, and for this reason a good headshot should portray him with brown eyes. The black eyes could be jarring to a casting director too, and unless they're casting for horror or some other very specific genre, they might skip this actor based on that detail. A little bit of dodging in his eyes, and perhaps some masked in color adjustments would be an easy fix to this issue in post production, and is also something I find myself correcting in many of my own headshots.

I personally prefer a less shallow depth of field and a more balanced framing in my headshots and portraits, but I also think that those are particularly subjective observations, and neither of those details would matter to any casting director at all. If either of those are details that you personally prefer, then I support your decisions.