Hair and Makeup for Actor's Head Shots: Featuring Actress Victoria Galen

In this post we are going to share with you the process, "behind the scenes", of actor's head shots.  I have a friend from nursing school who is an actress and a photographer strictly for actor's.  This girl does it all!!! Can you imagine....a nurse, an actress, and a photographer.  However, she has been so busy with her photography business that she is not really focusing on getting a job as a nurse right now.  I have heard that agencies recommend her to actors, so click on the link and check her out if this is something you are interested in.  Her name is Anna of Anna Ritch Photography.  Although, as an actress she is known as Anna Enger (her maiden name) you may have seen Anna in shows like Vampire Diaries, Necessary Roughness, or Drop Dead Diva to name a few.  She is one of the coolest people I know.  She saw mine and Nisha's pictures on Facebook and gave me a call and asked us about, mostly makeup, for the actors that she photographs {See the rest of the story beneath the pics}

Normally, head shot sessions do not include hair styling but do include 3 different makeup looks.  Apparently this is what agencies are looking for.  They want to know that an actor can pull off different looks.  For Victoria, the actress featured in this post, it was important that she could have a sort of "homeless" look, a professional look, a sexy look, and an everyday somewhat "motherly" look.  You will notice that very light makeup is used.  This is so that agencies can see what is beneath all the makeup yet still see a hint of what they have to build on.  So the overall idea is makeup that doesn't look like you are wearing makeup.  For this particular shoot I did do some different hair styles.  However, this is not the norm.  Usually actors arrive with their hair fixed by themselves and Anna may or may not arrange it a little differently.  Although it is an option to have someone there for hair if the actor so desires.  Now Nisha has worked with Anna numerous times since this shoot and has loved every minute of it.  She even got to take 1 actress shopping to advise her on which makeup products to buy.  This is the only shoot that I participated in and I loved getting to see Anna again and also meeting Victoria Galen.  The 4 of us had so much fun!!!  We would do makeup and hair at Anna's studio in her beautiful home, then we would all get in the car and drive to a nearby location to shoot that particular look, and then go back to the house and build on the previous look then get in the car and.....well, you can figure it out.  Victoria was sooo amazing and I have officially added her to the "one of the coolest people I know" list also.  My list continues to grow as I can continue to meet such intriguing people.  But she's just one of those who is just so much fun to be around.  You can check out Victoria's profile on IMDB and see the movies she has been in.  Her latest movie The Great Divide is supposed to be released September 25 of this year.  She was telling us all about it and it sounds absolutely hilarious. You can check out her interview with Times Free Press about her leading role in The Great Divide.  We can't wait to see it !!!!!  She has also been a radio broadcaster.  If you heard her talk you would guess it right away.  She has one of those great voices.  We are so grateful to Victoria for letting us feature her and share her photos on our blog.  Hope you enjoyed this experience as much as we did!!!

XOXO,