How I became a Headshot Photographer

How I Became a Headshot Photographer

From Business Degree to Fashion Photographer

This is my first blog post I thought it'd be interesting to explain to you guys my path of how I came to be a headshot photographer. I grew up in the state of Idaho.  Basically there's nothing in Idaho.  it’s really really boring. In highschool I was playing guitar in a band doing the standard “I want to be in a rack band highschool thing.  One day I had a camera I was taking pictures of my girlfriend. The photos turned out really good and I thought someday I might want to be a photographer.  After college, I got my degree in Business Administration, not photography, strange as that may seem.  Wanting to get out of Idaho I moved to Seattle.  One day at the beach I was looking at some fashion magazines and I thought I wanted to try and be a photographer.  I had no idea how I was going to do it, or what it took to become a photographer, or any clue of what to do.  I was just looking at the pictures in the magazine thinking to myself “if somebody else can do it, there's no reason why I can't do it.”  After I 100% decided to make the change to be a photographer I traded my guitar and some other musical equipment to a friend for his camera and started being a photographer. At this point I made a couple friends who are also interested in photography one guy was just getting started like me and we would take pictures and talk about them and share them with each other.  My other friend had been doing it for a couple years.  He was working with the local modeling agencies. We were all friends hanging out talking about photography.  One day the guy who was a photographer for a couple of years had a friend show up and was sleeping on his couch.  He was a male model and he had just returned from Milan Italy where he was modeling.  He said to us “hey you guys should go to Milan and shoot fashion photography there.”  For some reason, I don’t know why, we decided that was good idea.  So one of my friends and I started saving our money and made the trip to Milan.  I lived there for a year and a half shooting fashion photography for the modeling agencies in Milan. It was an awesome experience and I really loved it.  And of course the food and wine in Italy are really really good.

Transition to Headshot Photographer in Los Angeles

After a year and a half I move back to Seattle and was working as a photographer.  I don't know if you've ever been to Seattle, but it rains a lot, I mean it rains A LOT.  That's when I decided to move to California. I saved up my money, packed up my car full of all my belongings and drove to Los Angeles. I think this is why I can relate to all the aspiring actors who move to Los Angeles. When I first arrived in Los Angeles I was still shooting fashion photography.  After a few years I saw that there was a lot of the actors in LA and they all needed headshots. I thought it would be a good idea to start doing headshot photography.  It turned out to be a  really good decision.  After my background doing fashion photography the transition to headshot photography was very easy for me.  I understood about lighting and using natural light and catching people's expressions. I had some friends were doing acting and modeling and I decided to their head shots for free first. After about a year shooting headshots I got my studio in downtown Los Angeles.  I've been at the same studio for the past 10 years.  Everyday new actors come in to get their headshots.  I love meeting new people and hearing their stories and how they came to Los Angeles.  It's very rewarding to give people awesome headshots as they pursue their acting careers. I love to see people succeed in their dreams.

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Acting Headshots

Acting Headshots