One of the first steps I needed to take upon moving to the city was getting new headshots taken. I have never been completely satisfied with a headshot of mine from Houston, and it’s important to me to get a really good one here, because they’re a significant investment. I looked at the galleries of several photographers at Reproductions Photo, a company that makes prints of headshots and also maintains a directory of headshot photographers around the country, complete with slideshows of their work.
I picked two photographers, one based on a recommendation from a friend of a friend and one based solely on his website, and I met with both. The first photographer I met with, the one I picked based solely on the quality of his work online, was Lev Gorn.
Lev is an interesting guy. I discovered, after setting a meeting with him, that he’s not just a photographer, but also an actor and a filmmaker. In fact, he’s rehearsing Three Sisters right now with Annette (total coincidence). I had seen him before, in fact, in Season 2 of The Wire, which is by far my favorite season of my favorite TV show of all time. You can check out his website for some examples of his work; here’s one of my favorite examples:
Paul Ben-Victor Headshot
This is another source of an interesting anecdote. The photo above is of actor Paul Ben-Victor. I’m a big fan of Ben-Victor, and have been ever since he had a lead in a terrible Sci-Fi Channel series called The Invisible Man. That show was execrable, I assure you, but Paul had this character in the show, Agent Bobby Hobbes, that made the show for me. Hobbes seemed at first like a comic foil and third wheel to the titular invisible guy, but over the show’s short two season run he showed himself to be, in fact, a great character. Sure the invisible guy could go invisible, but he was an asshole and didn’t know the first thing about policework, whereas Bobby Hobbes turned out to be an awesome cop. The developing friendship and respect between Ben-Victor’s character and the invisible guy’s was THE reason I watched that show.
Ever since then I’ve seen Paul Ben-Victor turn up in little roles here and there and I’ve always been excited to see him. Paul plays a lot of cops, a lot of gangster types, and so on. Usually I’ll notice him playing the nameless cop or mobster or whatever in one scene of movie and go “Oh Shit it’s Paul Ben-Victor!” and everyone will look at me like I’m crazy.
I was particularly excited to see Paul in Season 2 of The Wire, which is, I presume, where he met Lev. They were in a lot of scenes together as they were both part of the same mob plotline. What a great show.
Right, so there was supposed to be a point to all this… Other than that I just picked a headshot photographer…
It’s really interesting the way that New York is teeming with people that you’ve seen before. There are so many actors here, and so many of them have been in SOMETHING you’ve seen… but most of the time they go unnoticed. There’s this subtle breaking down of barriers that happens here. First you realize that these Actors with a capital A that you see on television and in films are really just actors, like any actors, and that it’s not some impossible dream to be a part of that… Everybody from Paul Ben-Victor to Brad Pitt, they’re just actors. Good ones, but no different from me. That’s an exciting feeling.
