Headshot Photographer Los Angeles

Marielle was a referral from a friend of mine, and I’m going to steal a title from Toni Morrison to describe her – The Bluest Eyes!  It’s a shade of blue that you just get lost in staring into, even looking through the camera.  Very striking, and she’s got a vivacious personality.

I can’t believe this is my first post for 2013.  A lot of things are happening in my life right now with my other career path (I’m also a hairstylist), so unfortunately, it pushes the priority of this blog back a little bit.  I’ll try to stay on top of it.  It’s good to be updating, because I am still shooting!

Christina was a referral from a good friend of mine.  You know you’re working with a seasoned commercial actress when she tells you that she’s filmed six national commercials in the last two years!  Wowzers!  Just take one look at her commercial headshots below, and you’ll know the reason for her success.  This is one marketable face.

Despite being such a successful commercial actress, Christina is still trying to make headway on the theatrical front, so one of our primary goals of our session was to get a strong theatrical headshot.  For that, we headed to one of my favorite headshot locations.  If you saw the Dark Knight Rises, this is where the police chase scene was filmed about 45 minutes into the movie.  It’s also the ending scene with the helicopter.  I see this location used all the time in movies, and it’s funny because I know it well enough that sometimes when they pull a fast location switch (in the chase scene for example, they turn a corner, and the location actually switches), I’ll know it.  Anyway, I digress.  Here are some of Christina’s theatrical shots.

Here’s a link to one of Christina’s past SuperBowl commercials:  Commercial

Had a fun time shooting with the beautiful and energetic Savannah from Utah!  She was sent over from one of the agencies that I shoot for to get some updated, clean, commercial headshots.  Savannah has an affinity for girlie pink and the macabre…quite a combo, huh? ha!  There’s an important lesson to be learned from Savannah’s shoot.  While she was getting her hair done, the stylist styled her bangs to the side.  When Savannah saw herself in the mirror, she requested that the bangs be brushed forward because that’s how she normally goes into castings.  Kudos to her for wanting to be accurately represented in her headshots.  Know your look!  Also, shoutout to Shiou at Michael John Salon for the awesome makeup and hair.  Shiou  brings it every single time!

This is the second time that I’ve shot with Jessica.  The first time I shot with her was when she was fresh off the plane to LA.  When I first met her, my impression right from the beginning was that she’s so driven.  She was setting up a multitude of test shoots herself, planning meetups with agencies, and probing my brain on everything I knew of the industry (which incidentally wasn’t much at all, because I was just starting to build my headshot portfolio).  With some actors, you can just sense their determination, and I knew Jessica was hungry for it.  Fast forward a year and a half, and Jessica has come a long way.  She’s agency repped and the wide-eyed, inexperienced young woman is replaced by a seemingly seasoned vet.  It’s cool to watch her progress, and I hope she continues to go far!

In other news, I made some big changes to my website.  It has a new look to the front page, and I’ve added quite a few pictures to the galleries.  Check it out:

http://patrickchaiphotography.com

Hey friends, it’s been way too long since I’ve posted here.  Sad, truly sad.  I’d love to blame it on my assistant really, if only I had one.  :)  Truth be told, I’ve never been that much of a blogger, but yes, I do realize the importance of a blog in today’s webosphere and keeping everyone up to date with my work, so here’s a promise (made with all toes and fingers crossed).  Weekly updates?  I think I can do that.  Yes, I think so.  I recently booked another headshot session through this blog, and it’s just under 25,000 hits now, so it is worthwhile; the proof is in the pudding!  And if nothing else, the spam comments that I get are just delightful!  How else would I know the very best canadian goose parka (!) and where else would I have the opportunity to receive affirmations from lovely bots such as Tiesha Gacek telling me that my last post was the “Most insightful read and well cogitated!”?  I love you, Tiesha!

Moving on to more important matters, I shot with Marci a couple of weeks ago, and she was so much fun.  Her dedication to our photoshoot was clear; she drove all the way up from San Diego just to shoot with me!  She joked that I needed to see the odometer on her car to realize the extent of how much driving she does to make it up to castings in LA.  How can you not root for a woman like Marci?  She told me that now that her kid is grown up, she has time to pursue her passion of acting and chase some of her dreams that she didn’t have the opportunity to do before.  She epitomizes “it’s never too late”, and on top of all that awesomeness, she has such a vivacious, winning personality.  Our shoot was filled with laughter and fun, and hanging out with people like Marci is why I really like my job!

My famous 99 cent store reading glasses were back in action.  I warned Marci that everyone who has worn them so far has been blinded looking through them; when she put them on, she laughed that they were perfect for her eyes  Here’s Marci (above) with her sneaky librarian look.

Marci’s husband is a biology professor, so she brought a labcoat for a third look.

That’s all for now.  You all will have to wait for another well cogitated post!

I found out earlier this year that a family friend is a manager at Leverage, an awesome management company that represents actors such as Leighton Meester and David Gallagher.  We coordinated with each other and set up a shoot for one of their up and coming actresses, Natalie Floyd.  Natalie has appeared in many shows including Pretty Little Liars, The Young and the Restless, and CSI: NY.  Our target was to move away from the “traditional” headshot and focus more on getting natural, closeup portraits.  According to the manager, those types of pictures are what they use the most for their clients.  I decided to break up the shoot into two parts.  The first part, we focused on getting a clean portrait with a light, summer-like mood.  I really like how these turned out.

The second part, we added more edge and picked locations with more dramatic lighting for theatrical headshots.

Special thanks to Mary @ Leverage for setting this shoot up for me.

Natalie’s IMDB:   Link

I just returned from a great family vacation up to Big Sur and Napa Valley, and when we got back, my mom insisted that I take some headshots (just for fun) for my little sister.  So I whipped out my equipment, and we knocked out these shots in about 15 minutes.  My sister, of course, is not an actress, but she’s always been the artistic one in our family.  She double majored in art and architecture at Rice University, and she’s currently working for DS+R, one of the leading architecture firms in the nation.  Their projects include everything from designing the set of NY fashion week to the creative ingenuity of the NY High Line.  I’ve seen her architecture models, and yes, they do stack up against the stick figures that I’m capable of drawing  Maybe one day when she opens up her own firm these headshots will come in handy.  In the meanwhile, my mom will be happy to log these into the family photo album.

After my vacation, I’m ready hit the pavement running again.  Big private meeting tomorrow between me and all the commercial agents at CESD.  Let’s hope for the best!

The agencies that I’ve been in contact with have been increasingly requesting that I shoot more commercial headshots with solid backgrounds, so I decided to show them that I’m up for the challenge.  Grace is a friend of Arden Cho’s, whom I shot earlier this year.  Like me, Grace decided to go against the grain, leaving her former, conventional job to pursue a passion in the arts.  She also has one heck of a testimony on her faith.  During our session, I experimented with a few new techniques (i.e. subject distance to the light source), and I like how the results came out.  It’s got a lot more pop compared to my methods before.  The pictures, I think, are very appropriate and friendly for commercials.  Happy shots for marketing happy products!

Grace’s website:  Grace Su

Candice, summed up in a word, is awesome.  She’s consummately professional and a triple threat.  A beautiful model, a great actress, and to top it all off, she’s in the middle of going for her PHD in psychology.  Throughout our shoot, I really enjoyed talking with her about wearing different hats and we related on having such diversified professional interests.  What I noticed immediately was Candice’s connection with the camera and how well she took direction.  She had a strong handle on working her smile, and it’s a smile can push so many different products.  Candice is new to LA and currently unsigned.  I’d like to see how long that lasts.  She is going to get so much work out here!

I thought Amy found me through google, but as it turns out, Amy was a referral from Arden Cho (thanks Arden!).  Amy has a very friendly demeanor and personality, and I had a great time working with her.  She grew up in a small town north of Santa Barbara, where her parents own the only Chinese restaurant in town. She abandoned the small town life two years ago when she moved to LA.

Before the shoot, I always like to have a little consultation with the client.  I show them my portfolio with the different locations that I shoot at and we talk about what they’re looking for with their headshot.  Sometimes, clients are a little unclear with what they want, but Amy knew exactly what she was looking for.  She needed bright, colorful, commercial shots.  Her roles tend to be on the younger side, so we wanted to make her look as young as possible.  She pinned her hair back (which was an awesome move!) and the locations that I picked were all colorful, bright, with direct frontal lighting.  Here are two of my favorite shots from our session.  I think the blue background really pops out her shirt and her skin tone in this first shot:

And in this second shot, I love how the wind cooperated at just the right time to create some movement in the hair.  Combined with a great smile, I think Amy is ready to go out there and get some commercials!