Actor Headshots in Edmonton

A studio session is $250, plus $125 for each image you choose, the same rate as any headshot session with me. There are no packages: you pick your images once you’ve seen them on the screen. The image fee covers the retouching and your rights to use the photos. Hair and makeup is priced separately.

The theatrical frame is usually closed-mouth and more grounded; the commercial one shows teeth and reads warmer and more open. The names shift depending who’s asking: some agents and casting directors say theatrical and commercial, others say dramatic and comedic, and they map roughly the same way. There’s often a third, character, sitting off to the side of both. Knowing your type is worth it because it’s how casting talks, but you’re more than a label, and the actors who do well know the language well enough to work inside it while still letting their own range show. If you don’t know your type yet, that’s normal. It only really shows up through doing the work and noticing what you land. We can talk it through in the session, or skip it if you already have it figured out.

Yes, that’s how I shoot. Every frame goes straight into the computer, so we look at them together as we go, cut what isn’t landing and build on what is. You’re directing the session as much as I am, and neither of us is guessing.

One or two on hand, just in case, and that’s about it. Submissions are digital now, and most casting directors and artistic directors will turn a print away because they already have it on screen. The days of printing two hundred headshots for a season of auditions are gone. Your finals include print ready 8×10s, so printing a couple is easy. Your name across the bottom matters less than it used to, as well. That was for when the headshot got stapled to a résumé and the two came apart, so a face could be matched to the credits. The digital file carries your name now.

I retouch naturally, removing temporary imperfections that distract from your face and expression, things like a blemish that’ll be gone in a week. Permanent features stay. You see all the retouching, you have final say, and you can ask for anything else. Revisions are unlimited and free, and nothing is finalized until you approve it.

When you stop looking like your headshot, obviously. But beyond that, update when you’ve grown as an actor: booked work, built confidence, shifted your energy. A headshot from when you were starting out reads differently than one from after a year of consistent work. It’s a chance to redefine yourself to casting directors and artistic directors, and to yourself, showing who you know you can become.

Often, yes, in what they look for. Theatre casting is usually led by the people directing the thing, and imagining is their job, so one honest photograph can be enough. Film and television run through more hands, with people weighing budget and marketability alongside the creative call, so the photograph has to do more of the imagining for you. That’s why film headshots lean literal, right down to the look, the hair and the register. How many you need is a different question. One can be enough for either, and theatre actors often want more anyway: one for the website, one for social, a different one for the program bio. We shoot enough that you can decide that afterwards.

Your own clothes. You’ll get prep notes before the session, and we go through what to bring so the looks are yours rather than a costume.

Yes. I was an actor first, and I spent 20 years performing professionally, on stage and in TV shows, commercials and web series. I toured with Catalyst Theatre’s Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe across Canada, to New York twice, including five months Off-Broadway, and to London. You can still watch the film version online. I’ve also played every theatre in Edmonton, including the Citadel Theatre, Theatre Network, Teatro La Quindicina at the Varscona Theatre and the Mayfield Dinner Theatre. My performance in Theatre Network’s Infinity was nominated for a Sterling Award, and my writing on Caution: May Contain Nuts, a sketch comedy show I also acted in, was nominated for a Gemini Award (now the Canadian Screen Awards). I’ve directed for the screen too, second unit on that show’s web content and a web series. I have a BFA in Acting from the University of Alberta and also trained at Grant MacEwan, now MacEwan University, where I went on to teach auditioning as a sessional instructor for five years or more. I’m a regular guest in the U of A BFA’s professional development class, talking about headshots and what it’s actually like to be an actor. Between my kids and the studio, I keep it low-key now, but I still dip my toes in when time allows, helping playwrights with readings of their new plays and directing. So I know your side of the camera, and the audition room, from the inside, and that’s what the session is built on.