Well, I’ve gotten feedback from my agent, and from several people who read this blog, and from family members. And here are the finalists for my new headshot. Help me pick the “winner”?

Here’s what my agent had to say about the selection of photos I sent to them for review: “We really don’t like the ‘brooding’ look. One image with that look might be ok for tough guy roles, but for the most part we like interesting looks (a little smile, a story in the eyes etc).”

So you tell me — do these photo meet that criteria? Remember that my goal for this headshot is to show how I really look now, without “typecasting” me into a single look or age. I’d like to be able to use the primary headshot from this shoot until after Christmas, unless I hit a growth spurt or change how I look substantially.

A “substantial” change might be anything from a new scar to a haircut, or if I have to start shaving or have a growth spurt. Hopefully, none of those things will happen before Christmas.

One of the things an actor needs to do is to budget for things like new headshots. It can cost several hundred dollars to get a great photographer to shoot new headshots for you, and then there is the cost of having some printed for face-to-face auditions. I set aside some money every month to put into my headshot fund, along with the money I put aside for taxes, my college fund, the online services I subscribe to, acting classes, audition taping, and travel costs for auditions.

Update: We wound up picking one commercial headshot and one feature headshot. But in the month since these were taken, I’ve already booked TWO gigs off the “character” headshots that weren’t picked as my primary headshots. One role as a gang member in a TV series, and one gig as an extra where I play a bad kid. I don’t think I’d have gotten either one using my standard feature or commercial headshots. So I am glad that Todd Jenkins suggested a wider range of images for this shoot.