Half a shoulder

That's what I learnt at my photographic session today - an actor's headshot should focus on the face and reveal very little else. As a novice, I hadn't been aware of this strict convention, but when I thought back over my limited experience of the theatre, it rang a loud bell. Like all conventions, it sounded both reasonable and unreasonable - why should the picture that shows half a bicep be unacceptable to an agent? Surely you get a better sense of an actor's physical appearance when you step back from the two olives and banana that make up a face and put it into the broader perspective of shoulders and body?

But mine not to reason why... Instead I relaxed sat back and let Paul Harrison spend nearly two hours with me this afternoon, taking almost 200 pictures, which we then whittled down to three primary images and a bonus. It was - for me - a difficult task. I consider my face one of the less attractive parts of my body and do not enjoy having to go through dozens of pics showing nothing but my mug. All I see are wrinkles, spots, too big a skull, ears too big, misshapen mouth, baggy eyes, droopy eyelids and so on. The only good thing about my face is that I very seldom have to look at it. But others find it inoffensive and the Other Half has been known to call me good-looking, so I put up with it and can at least fall back on the old joke that I have an excellent face for radio or horror films.

Somehow, by the end of the session, Paul had taken about a dozen pictures which revealed a potentially interesting character who might be an asset in a production involving criminals or perverted uncles. From these we (including the Other Half, who had sat in on the shoot) chose three that revealed me to be more or less human, including one which even showed a bit of bare arm. "A casting director might not like that," Paul warned, "even as your third picture", but I thought I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. If I'm lucky enough to get an agent who gets me work, I'll give him or her a headshot that shows every vein in my bloodshot eyes if need be.... And with a spring in my step because I thought the final pics were not too bad and  I would soon be on to the next stage of my would-be career - contacting agents and looking for auditions - I said thank you and goodbye and the two of us set off for home.