Let's Talk Headshots

I'm a photographer. I've recently started pivoting into headshot photography and portrait work. I spend a bit of time popping around the Burlesque scene in Los Angeles and recently had the pleasure of shooting with performer Darling Alley Cat (that's her above). We wanted to do something special for her shoot so we went retro.

The floorplan for this one is a little strange because we had a session booked and I had no strobes for that day. So, we went with a set of 4 color-spikes. Setup was something like this:

Usually, when I'm doing portraits, I stick with my trusty 70-200mm so jumping over to a 55mm lens pulled me much closer to my subject than I'm accustomed to. But, if you want that vintage look, you go for the vintage glass.

Here's the full gear list for this shot:

• Backdrop (black)
• 4x Colorspikes (2 on each side arranged vertically)
• Sony A7Sii
• 55mm 1.8 Takumar M42 Lens (most likely around 4.0, judging from the not insane bokeh)

It occurs to me as I type this that not only was this before I bought strobes (I'm coming from the world of video), I hadn't even bought light stands and the Colorspikes were wrangle-locked haphazardly to these weirdo antique c-stands that I got for cheap off of Craigslist.

Finishing was done in Photoshop and I believe I put some energy into exagerating the blur around the edges.

I know that some photographers love their continuous lighting for portraits. I don't know that I'm one of them. While I had fun on set that day, nothing beats the ceremony of the flash. Maybe I'll give it another go with some LED panels one day (the spikes are rods) but I've been having too much fun with my 7' umbrella. What does that look like? Well, tune in tomorrow to find out!