Portraits of a Student Actor

Actors are a blast to photograph. As you might imagine, however, they are not always at home in front of the lens. Even seasoned thespians feel a bit of stage fright at times. At least that's what Meryl told me when we were having drinks the other day...

A lot of actors are more comfortable acting (i.e. performing) than modeling (more static), so I'll often keep them in acting mode. It's fun to yell out emotions and situations for them to interpret: depressed, elated, perplexed, your puppy is lost, you are greeting your girlfriend at the airport after a long trip, you're an angry bumblebee! This gets them nice and loose, and sometimes the great headshot comes a fraction of a second after the angry bumblebee.

Bryan is a student actor from UMBC, but he worked like seasoned pro. Indeed, we accomplished so much early on that there was extra time at the end of the hour to experiment with the multiple exposure portrait you see above.