A FIREWORK A DANCING FLAME

The first time I ever met Shalyah was on a cold January night where people were in a basement singing karaoke and she was singing Teenage Dream by Katy Perry and I was like….we are going to be friends! She later on was in my Chaos Theory Dream Team class that took over all of our hearts and that was more than a year ago.

Shalyah had a common problem in her old headshots that made her look really pretty but she felt like it didn’t represent exactly who she was NOW. There have been a lot of people that write to me to tell me that they’ve gotten really pretty shots, but they feel like their eyes are vacant and that it doesn’t represent them or it gets them in audition for roles that they are completely uninterested in doing.  The good thing is realizing this and taking control of your image.

I think these pictures reflect how warm, personable and sassy Shalyah is in real life. She can be sweet, a bad ass bitch and an ingénue — just you wait and see.

Happy Spring Ya’ll.

I’ve been very lucky to work with a lot of lovely ladies, but I rarely feature all the great gentlemen that I get to work with because I’m silly like that. JD, Peter and Zack are all great guys and very active in the NYC comedy community so I felt really lucky that they come to me to get their headshots taken.

Gentlemen, when getting your headshots taken there are a few things you should do so that we can get the best optimal results.

Grooming

Do you want to have a beard? Will you be clean shaven? I do not recommend shaving 20 minutes before coming to your shoot, give your skin sometime to heal and moisturize. 

Do not get a haircut in the week leading up to your session. Something always happens and then we have to try to fix it during the session, and you’re focusing on your hair rather than relaxing…so let your hair be. Also if you have longer hair/curly hair, definitely be aware of it and how it will photograph. Bring a comb & styling products if needed.

Wardrobe

My favorite thing about taking pictures of these lovely dudes is that they really do bring a lot of clothes so our options are always open. Nothing is off limits, from the super fancy to a regular V-neck. I love this because sometimes we get so stuck in our heads on what we think looks good that we forget that we also need to have what photographs well. Sometimes they are completely different things.

So when coming to my session just know that we’re going to have a really fun time if we plan ahead. Bring some tunes and just trust the process and we’ll get you the best picture of you possible.

Some of my favorite comedians hosted a variety show called Ladies Night: Men Welcome at UCB East and it was such a blast to attend. Shannon O’Neill, Lydia Hensler and Morgan Grace Jarrett had their first show of their run on March 29th. The guest bartender was Brandon Scott Jones with special audience member Calín Fernandez.  Guests were stand-up Halle Kiefer, storyteller Caitlin Brodnick, dance group Cocoon Dance Team, and sketch team Bokeh Rachel. 

Its fun to see all the different realms that fall under the comedy umbrella and they put on a really great show. You can see their next show on Thursday April 12th at 11pm @ UCB East.

To see more pictures of that night go to my flickr set: Ladies Night: Men Welcome

MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR

It’s a funny story how Tricia and I ended up meeting. I had the chance to be the Indie Darling at Indie Cagematch back in January at UCBEast and as a bit/shameless promotion I handed out my business card to the audience of 75. Truthfully, I didn’t know what this little stunt could bring but I figured that even if one person got back to me it was a success. Things that happened: 2 friend requests on Facebook (!!), a tipsy conversation at McManus about improv, and one of my favorite emails that included the sentence, “I’ll bring my old headshots to the shoot so we can make paper airplanes out of them.”

Tricia wanted to make sure that her persona/personality matched up to the headshot she was submitting because even though she’s adorably petite with doe eyes, she has the personality of a Lizzie Caplan— old soul, dry and no bullshit. So my job was to make sure that I conveyed that powerful nonosense woman in her pictures. I think she looks like a total HBIC (Head Bitch In Charge).

A LITTLE BIT COUNTRY & LITTLE BIT ROCK & ROLL

There needs to be a sense of play when you’re getting your pictures taken and I think that while photographing Caitlin — we certainly had our good share of fun & business. Caitlin is one busy bee, and so I wanted to give her as many looks as she needed for her lifestyle: she is a writer with the sketch team Neighbor Boy @ UCB, performer with improv teams Gadget and Code Red, director of various sketch shows and host a pub quiz show — Girl is working it and sometimes you need different shots to fit the different parts of your life. 

Also, I liked how different the outfits can look and feel just by the different expressions that you give. That orange top looks fun and flirty on the white background, and in the grey background it’s all Head Honcho. I LOVE THAT.

I had a blast on this shoot and I’m glad that Caitlin got some new shots that truly represent where she is now…which is definitely on top of her game.

NAKED PEOPLE: A ONE WOMAN SHOW BY JULIA WIEDEMAN

All these pictures are safe for work but the show will give you more of an eyeful into the mind of Julia and her characters and what it means to be truly naked. Julia has been fearless since the moment I met her back in a UCB class in 2009, and she remains so in this wonderful one woman show. I was able to take a couple of pictures for her press packet and wanted to share them with you all.

Naked People runs again at UCB on Wednesday, February 22nd at 9:30pm.

BROAD CITY LIVE: Get Drunk With Broad City

I was lucky enough to take pictures at the first Broad City Live shows at UCB Theatre. Abbi and Ilana are going to be hosting a curated hour of comedy each month and here are some of the highlights of the first show. Let me tell you guys, it was a packed house and and while the whole show was a blast, the intermission danceparty song of 212 by Azealia Banks — has been officially added to my pump up mix.  More pictures are available at the source. Enjoy!

(Source: Flickr / melissago)

FULL OF GRACE

The first time I met Morgan was at a nightclub at 6:30am as we were on location at 49 Grove to shoot the last episode of Vag Magazine. We literally had five minutes to build a rapport and jump right into taking character headshots (Morgan is the one in the pink onesie). She was of course a complete and utter joy and just radiated light and was so much fun to work with.  I was so honored that when she decided to renew her headshots, she asked me to do so.

I once again had a pre-shoot meeting (seriously, i love these) and we were able to pinpoint the strengths of her old headshots and what we wanted coming into this session to make her new shots even stronger. Morgan was equally as invested in making this a success as much as I was — and you should all be since headshots are your #1 marketing tool for yourselves. I fed off of her enthusiasm and we were able to have fun and get the look that we wanted and had planned for. What a delight.

You can check Morgan out on Tumblr and follow her @msmorgangrace

MY LITTLE CHAMELEON

Ellena is one of my closest friends in the NYC/UCB community and I was so happy to be able to take her headshots again. She was one of the first handful of people that I ever took headshots of and it’s so gratifying to see how much her demeanor has changed infront of the camera and how my stylistic eye has changed as well. I even put her in some of my roommates dresses, clothes that I know that she wouldn’t necessarily pick for herself, but you’re not always going to be playing yourself when you get casted for projects.

One of the huge things that has changed in headshots in the last couple of years is that you no longer have just a commercial headshot and a dramatic headshot. You now can tailor make your headshots to the parts you apply for and get a leg up on the rest of the competition. You want to play a pissed off hipster? Get that picture. Quirky Librarian? Put on some glasses and a tight bun. Young Mom? Wear a cardigan or V neck sweater. You want to make it as easy as possible for these casting directors to see you in that role. I think Ellena did a great job of vary her look to really satisfy as many roles as possible.  You should plan ahead, just like she did!

A SET OF DREAMBOATS.

I am a very lucky photographer in which I get to take pictures of people that make me laugh and ones that I admire very much. I met Ryan after an improv show at a bar called Grassroots  and 2 minutes later we were old friends. He needed a headshot for an audition in a crunch and I fit him in between a million other things. He was flexible and I was flexible and we both made it work.

One of the cool things that came with it was that his teammate Georgia, really liked the photos and opted to have me take her writers portrait. I was beyond flattered because it takes one thing to take a picture of your friend, but when someone picks you for the work you’ve done without really knowing you, it feels quite special. Georgia is a writer from Australia and works on projects from books to columns to screenplays. She also had a very busy schedule and was on many deadlines and we both were flexible enough to make it work.

TIP: Never be afraid to simply just ask a photographer if they can work with your special situation. If you need to break up your session between two different days, you want half studio/half street, or a longer session time, I am here to work with you to get the shot you like!