This post could also be titled “A Bunch of Extremely Awkward Pictures of Joe.” I feel that I need to warn you that here I will be breaking my typical format of not having pictures by having pictures. These pictures will all be of me. Many of them will not be flattering. If you have not met me, perhaps you would like to skip this entry so as to keep the image of me that you have created in your mind unsullied by harsh reality. That said, this is also the first really concrete bit of acting advice I am going to provide, so you should probably just struggle through.

Another warning: The process of getting my headshots taken, retouched, and printed took me about a month. You must have professional-seeming headshots to audition professionally, so, if you are an aspiring actor, I recommend doing this as soon as possible.

Now, as I mentioned in Step 3, I began my entry into Chicago’s theatre scene by contacting several contacts, theatre world-insiders who I knew beforehand. One of the questions I asked my contacts was where to get my headshots taken. They each gave me their own long list of photographers who they knew did actor headshots. I looked all these photographers up online, and I confirmed that yes, indeed, they all did actor headshots. My contacts had not lied.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about photography, and thus could not assess the skill of these photographers based on their websites. I decided to take a more scientific approach. I cross-referenced all the lists my contacts gave me to see which photographer was mentioned the most. Only one man appeared on every list. His name was Brian McConkey. (If you are Brian McConkey, look at this free advertising! Isn’t this great? Wouldn’t it be a nice gesture to send a cut of your earnings to Joe Kloehn, considering that this hit blog is read by millions? Maybe you should even think about officially sponsoring this blog! Wouldn’t that be fantastic? Your customer base would probably increase by ten-fold, and that’s a conservative estimate! Anyway, just some food for thought.)

I set up an appointment with Mr. McConkey. He also offered to bring a stylist to the shoot for an extra ninety bucks, and I said sure, because this was my graduation present from my parents and thus not my money. I went to his loft, and after the stylist wiped some of the sweat off my forehead and tried to tame my cowlick, we spent nearly two hours shooting pictures of me. We did some pictures inside and some outside, which meant that McConkey and the stylist had to lug lots of gear around while I walked between them, pretending I had my own entourage. It was pretty great.

What was less great was receiving the pictures a week later. Not because of the quality of the pictures (don’t you dare pull those sponsorship dollars, McConkey), but because of the quantity. He sent me several hundred digital images of me, which is a lot of images. I spent the next few days staring at my face and going crazy.

The worst ones were easy to pick out. For example:

However, eventually I would get to a run of nearly identical pictures, and start focusing on tiny, insignificant changes.

Eventually, I landed on this picture, because of my smoky eyes and slight smile that says “I’m really sick of looking at pictures of my own face so this is going to have to do.”

McConkey recommended a photo retoucher, and since I could no longer un-see all my facial blemishes, I enlisted her help. This is the final product:

McConkey also recommended a printer, so I sent the retouched file to the print shop, went on vacation with my lovely and supportive girlfriend Kate (who should also feel free to sponsor this blog), and came back to find myself with two hundred 8x10s of these bad boys.

I pounded out some resumes listing my participation in a bunch of college shows, printed them, ran out of ink, bought more ink, printed more, cut them down to 8×10, stapled them to the back of my headshots, and was finally ready to audition.

If I could find some auditions.

I’ll tell you how to do that next week.

Keep reading.

 

And here are links to the photographer, retoucher, and printer I used. They were all excellent. Tell ‘em Joe Kloehn sent you. And tell ‘em he would like a cut of their profits for all this good press. I mean it.

Brian McConkey Photography: http://www.brianmcconkeyphotography.com/
Catherine Adam Retouching: http://www.ktretouching.com/
J&S Photo Service: http://www.jsphotoservice.net/