July 2, 2010 | 0 comments
As many of you know I’ve been on professional hiatus the past few months. Frustrated with the state of editorial photography and a little burned out on actors and agents, I closed the studio, packed a small bag, and headed off to eastern and central Europe, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean for a few months. I didn’t even take a camera.
But now I’m back in Toronto, refreshed, with a new perspective and a ton of great new ideas.
In the past year I’ve seen my powerful, unique headshot style imitated by photographers all over the city, both old and new, but this year I’m going to take things a step further, with a new personal shooting space, an exclusive schedule, and a more versatile product that’s as at-home in the digital age as it is in the world of traditional casting. I’ll also be getting back to the blog, so if you haven’t subscribed to this site (via email or RSS, in the right-hand column), I suggest you take a second and do that now.
I should be set up and shooting by the second half of July. If you’d like to schedule a session or a meeting, get in touch via email at chris@chrisframpton.net or call me at (416) 834-0840.
-Chris
January 27, 2010 | 0 comments
As of April 1st, 2010, I’ll be closing the studio and going on hiatus from shooting actors in order to work on some personal projects. My last day of shooting will be Friday, March 26th.
If you’re an actor who wants to work with me, this may be your last chance for a while. The next two months are going to fly by, and I’m already booking up like crazy. Get in touch with me now to set up a consultation or a shoot date.
Don’t worry, I’ll still be available to make prints and do retouching, so you’ll still be able to get 8×10s, print masters, and all the other products available through the website with the same 5 to 10 business day turnaround. The site and the order page are staying up, and you’ll always have access to your images.
If you’d like to be notified when I’m back to work or of one-off shoot dates, I highly suggest you subscribe this blog either via email or RSS.
I’ve been so privileged to have been able to meet and work with hundreds and hundreds of talented actors over the past few years. I wish you all the best for 2010.
January 11, 2010 | 0 comments
January is usually a pretty quiet time for the film & TV industry, and I always expect that the month is going to be a dead one for me. Of course by the third week I’m booked up with shoots and meetings and loaded with print orders. Business as usual.
Not surprising, I suppose. January is definitely a time to take a step back and evaluate what you’ve been doing for the past twelve months of your life, and specifically to make some new decisions, start new projects, and make some kind of fresh start. For actors, this is a great time of year to take some anxiety-free downtime and make plans for March and April when the industry starts to come out of its post-holiday hibernation.
A lot happened in 2009. I think we saw the business of acting take its biggest steps away from the traditional structure of casting>agents>actors and features>TV>commercials, and toward something far more remixed. Actors, casting and production are speaking directly for the first time through sites like AACTION and Casting Workbook. TV, a medium that was once completely overshadowed by features, is in the middle of an incredible renaissance. And the web is almost overloaded with viral advertising and comedy projects, both low budget and high.
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July 25, 2009 | 3 comments
F.A.Q.s (Frequently Asked Questions) about headshots are usually pretty boring and disingenuous (What should I wear? Something that brings out your eyes!). The cold fact is most headshot photographers are corny hacks who are more interested in getting you to stay behind to do “artistic nudes” than helping you forge relationships with casting directors. More interesting is this F.U.Q. — a list of fears, insecurities and gross misconceptions about the business of actors headshot photography. Unlike an F.A.Q. I’ll only list the questions. I think the answers are self evident. If you do too I just might be the photographer you’ve been looking for.
Chris Frampton’s Actors Headshot F.U.Q.
I hate the way I look. Will I like the way I look in pictures you take?
I think I have big gums/bad teeth/an unattractive smile. If I clamp my lips together though the whole shoot so that it doesn’t show, will it look funny?
Some actors friends in L.A./Vancouver/New York/Toronto say you’re the hot photographer to shoot with right now. I don’t like your pictures, and I don’t want my pictures to look like yours. Will I like pictures you take of me?
I’ve had my headshots done a million times. They’ve never made an ounce of difference for me with casting. I hear you do pictures that casting love, and that you have a collaborative approach that helps actors translate their skills and instincts for still photography. I want pictures like that, but I’m probably just going to ignore you during the shoot and pose or “make my face” like I always have. Is this going to work out?
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June 15, 2009 | 0 comments
By far the worst actors to photograph are film & TV veterans.
That may sound backwards, but generally speaking I will get more killer pictures out of a sweating, nervous newbie than I will out of someone who’s been on every Canadian TV show since Littlest Hobo. Do you know why? It’s because veteran film & TV actors develop a shtick – an act or routine that they can easily call up and deploy. It allows them to stop listening and concentrate on making it look a certain way. It allows them to control the performance.
In front of the camera a shticky actor might nod or laugh at a joke, but they’ll never break the pose or position they’ve put themselves into. They’re constantly working against you as a photographer because, hell, you’re only a photographer, right? They know what their “angles” are. They know how to “find the light”. They know they’ll look thinner on a 45 degree angle. To hell with the emotional language of the picture. They’re actors! They have a shtick for that! I’ve actually had actors drop to the floor for a few quick pushups when they’ve thought I was pausing to tell them a story.
You can’t blame them really. In film & television acting is usually competitive. You worry about how much coverage you’re getting, why you aren’t in more scenes or shots, whether your best take happened on your closeup, if the light’s better for you or the other person in the scene, if the director likes you, if you’re screwing things up for the continuity person, if your lines are going to be cut, and you worry about all this stuff compared to the other actors.
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May 26, 2009 | 2 comments
In an episode of Arrested Development, David Cross’s character, the speciously gay psychiatrist-turned-aspiring actor Tobias Funkë, has a series of desperate, over-literal and hilarious headshots done. In each of the four of them, Tobias stands in front of a mottled blue photo backdrop, eyebrows arched, head cocked in childish apology, alternately bedecked as an office worker clutching a green folder, a doctor complete with head mirror, a headband-sporting tennis player, and an S&M guy in a leather vest and ballgag.
It’s funny as hell, not just because of how David Cross is gamely holding his own leash as if he’s offering it to you, but because it’s only vaguely unrealistic. All over the world (but let’s be honest — mostly in L.A.), desperate actors and terrible photographers produce embarrassingly overstated headshots that are (bless their little cotton socks) more like car crashes than calling cards. From the transgressions of the 80s and 90s (leather jackets, bare chests and cycling shorts anyone?) to more modern Funkë-esque costume pictures (It’s my E.R. shot!), headshot photography can be long on irony and short on sense.
Last year comedian Patrick Borelli and photographer Douglas Gorenstein decided to exploit the unintentional hilarity of awful American-style headshot photography by publishing Holy Headshot, a so-called “celebration of America’s undiscovered talent”.
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May 11, 2009 | 1 comments
Sometimes it seems like video is taking over everything. Newspapers and magazines give way to video podcasts and looping info reels on subway platform LCDs. Static websites become rich media sites. Cellphones become video cameras. Social networking sites become video sharing platforms.
Even my own business - photography - is changing into a strange hybrid of media production jobs. I spend less and less time doing traditional photography, and more and more time producing, directing and editing video projects.
The slate's in the DVD menu! How cool is that?
Actors (and particularly actors agents), as usual, are slow to change, but that doesn’t mean the world around you (the world of production and casting) is too. If video is the new photography, a video demo reel of some kind is the new headshot. I can tell you from experience, having a demo is a must-have if you want to take the next step as a working actor.
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May 4, 2009 | 3 comments
Many of you know that in addition to being a PDN award-winning image maker, I’m also a two time almost-ran novelist, former feature writer for the Toronto Star, failed M.O.W. writer, former actor in terrible cop shows and commercials both national and international, and that I also own a brand new digital production company called Flyweight Films that creates short films for the web, and which has already had some great press like a mention on Time Magazine’s Nerdworld blog.
Well guess what? This year I’m writing, producing and directing a comedic web series called Act Natural, and I’m ready to cast the pilot episode! Woo!
Act Natural is an original, dry comedy series about the surreal world of commercial actors. It follows the lives of three less-than-perfect actors with visions of success but very different viewpoints as they try to make careers for themselves in film & TV.
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April 2, 2009 | 0 comments
I’ve wasted a lot of money advertising this business. I once spent a thousand bucks putting a half page colour ad in the ACTRA newsletter, advertised in student handbooks, and even done seven foot tall graffiti-style pasteups around the city in an effort to get people thinking a little more critically about their headshots.
If you’re a returning client, 10 referrals would mean $150 off the regular session price with the returning client discount
You know what I got for my efforts? Tire kickers, models wanting free portfolio work, and angry skeptics. If I’ve learned one thing from buying advertising it’s that this business is all about referrals.
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March 17, 2009 | 4 comments
Shooting actors for casting is a strange and particular thing to find yourself doing as a photographer. New photographers tend to think it’s one of those throwaway things they’ll do until they get established in fashion or editorial — in fact the term “headshot” has become almost synonymous with any generic, easy-to-produce utility picture, whether the person in it is an actor, a real estate agent, or in business. “You’re a headshot photographer” is basically an insult in the world of professional photography.
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