Creative Headshot of a Classical Music Composer
This is a shoot I did several weeks ago. I picked up a phone call from a classical music composer at Harvard University, asking for a creative professional headshot. Unlike actor's headshots, her headshots had more freedom to include creative elements, and I wanted to incorporate something that relates to music... but I have no knowledge nor experience in music, so I needed some time to think. So I told Hannah to let me get back to her by email in a few days, and hang up the phone.
The challenge was obvious: incorporating music into a picture of the woman who wrote it. I started sipping a cup of steamy green tea to stimulate my brain, and many ideas were generated and immediately scrapped. After some time, I sent her a few ideas, from which she chose a couple. One of the ideas resulted in the attached pictures.
I swept the studio floor when setting up for the shoot, but swept one more time, and laid out Hannah's hand written score on the floor in a random order. We didn't damage a single leaf but she probably had to manually sort them in order after the shoot. I wanted to create the crisp, bright lighting for dramatic effects, and filled the shadow just enough to see what's there. This is the type of lighting that is most demanding on the makeup, but Rose Fortuna (of MAC store on Newbury St.) did fantastic job, as her usual.
One trick you don't see in the pictures is that, I had to fabricate a tiny pillow to put under Hannah's head so that I get her head positioned at the best angle without causing pain in her neck.
P.S. I later found that the composer's website was up and running... so here it goes: http://www.hannahlash.com/index.html
