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Rinaldi, a New York-based photographer who specializes in digital headshots for actors, met Glover, who had a full head of hair, a few days later in Los Angeles. He snapped the actor’s photograph and then used Adobe Photoshop, a photo-editing software, to remove all his hair. Rinaldi never learned what movie Glover was going for or whether his shots got him the job but the photographer says, "If you see a movie with a bald Danny Glover, then that’s the one we shot it for."
Rinaldi runs a completely digital headshot studio, Ron Rinaldi Digital Photography, in New York City and made the switch from film more than six years ago because digital cameras and memory cards made his job easier and faster. His clients do not usually ask Rinaldi to remove all of their hair. Typically retouching includes removing blemishes, crow's-feet, bags underneath eyes and smile lines. Rinaldi will also use technology to whiten teeth, thin arms and thin waists, a task much easier to do in Photoshop than on film. "I’ll take it to the point where it still looks like the person," Rinaldi says. "I wouldn’t put your head on Cindy Crawford’s body." Rinaldi says he sets these limits because directors trust his photographs to truly resemble of the actors he shoots. "In the end, I work for casting directors, I have to please them," says Rinaldi.
"If the photo is like Brad Pitt, and Joe Pesci walks into the door, the casting director is like, ‘what else are you going to lie to me about?’ " says Mihalko. But more than just removing blemishes, digital photography has improved every aspect of doing headshots, Rinaldi states on his Web site. With the technology he can do a shoot and the client can see the results immediately. When using film a photographer often takes a few Polariods during a shoot to check the light, but clients won’t see the finished photos for weeks. Rinaldi, who works out of his studio apartment in Union Square, takes his photographs with a Nikon D1 digital camera. After the shoot, he links his camera up to a wide-screen television and within seconds the images appear on the screen. The client chooses 40 to 80 photographs, and Rinaldi provides him or her with laser-printer proofs of their picks. The actor then orders glossy prints on Rinaldi’s Web site. "No one says 'I don’t like my hair' because we can see it and fix it here," he says. He goes on to explain that the entire process, from taking the photographs to making the prints, used to take a month. Now it takes a few hours.
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Sven, The Funny Guy, on Honest Headshots
"I’m the big blond guy type," says Reid Mihalko. "I’m Sven, the funny guy, or the beach guy on 'Baywatch.' " Mihalko is a New York actor who has appeared on television programs such as "Third Watch" and "As the World Turns." He also works at a photography studio in Union Square. "A lot of actors have an image in their heads of what they want to look like," Mihalko says. "They are looking to be that person [through the photos]." But if a photograph portrays an actor with a image that is not reflected in his personality, then the headshot has done more harm than good, says Mihalko. "Once you realize who you are and what you bring into the room – that’s what you want your headshot to be," Mihalko says. Links: |
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hat
would Danny Glover look like bald?" a film director in South
Africa asked Ron Rinaldi last year.
Reid
Mihalko, a New York actor and Rinaldi’s assistant, says that it
is very important for the headshot to truly reflect the actor’s
personality and appearance.
