I Spent 25 Years on Broadway. Here’s Why That Matters for Your Headshot.

Bear with me for a second, because this is going to start somewhere unexpected.

For over 25 years, I made my living as a bassist on Broadway shows, national tours, and for the past several years as a music contractor for La Jolla Playhouse, one of the most prestigious Broadway-bound theaters in the country. I’ve been in the pit for hundreds of productions, watching actors walk onto that stage every single night and do something that couldn’t be replicated, streamed, or faked.

I didn’t know it at the time, but those years were teaching me everything I’d eventually need to know about photographing performers.

Here’s What 25 Years in the Pit Teaches You

When you spend that long supporting live performance, you develop a sensitivity to something almost impossible to describe. You can feel when a performer is in it versus when they’re just executing. The audience feels it too, even if they couldn’t tell you why one night moved them and another didn’t.

It’s presence. And it photographs.

When I made the transition to headshot photography, that instinct came with me. I’m not just looking for good light and clean framing. I’m watching for the moment when you stop thinking about the camera and just become yourself. That’s the frame. That’s the one.

You can’t get there by uploading selfies to an app.

About Those AI Headshots

I get it. They’re cheap. They’re fast. And some of them look pretty good at first glance.

But here’s what I keep coming back to: your headshot isn’t really a photograph of your face. It’s a photograph of your readiness. It’s saying — I belong in that room. I’m worth the callback. I’ve done the work.

And that’s not something you can simulate.

The agents and casting directors I hear from in LA and New York can feel the difference, even when they can’t always explain it. The AI images look polished, sure. But they look like a person standing in front of a camera — not like a performer arriving somewhere. There’s no hunger. No specificity. No story behind the eyes.

There’s just a face that technically checks all the boxes.

I’ve been around enough performers to know the difference between someone hitting their mark and someone owning the stage. Your headshot needs to do the latter.

What We Actually Do in a Session

When you come work with me, the first thing I’m going to do is talk with you. Not small talk — real conversation. I want to know what you’re going after, what roles you’re chasing, what you want casting to feel the moment they land on your image.

Then I direct you. Not in a stiff, “hold that and don’t move” kind of way — in the way I learned to work alongside performers for 25 years. Reading your energy. Finding what’s specific to you. Waiting for the moment that can’t be manufactured.

Actors tell me sessions feel different from what they expected. Less like a photo shoot, more like a collaboration. That’s intentional. I speak your language because I’ve lived in your world.

The Real Talk on Cost

I know a few hundred dollars feels significant when there’s an app promising the same thing for $29.

But I’ve talked to actors who spent months submitting with AI images, wondering why nothing was moving. When they came in and we did this right, things changed quickly. Because the image finally matched who they actually are — and casting could feel it.

Your headshot is the audition before the audition. It’s the only thing standing between you and the room.

You’ve put in the work. Your headshot should prove it.