Ahhhh the joys of having a graphic/web designer as a roommate/best friend. Not only did Eric design my website and this blog, but he also does all of my photo retouching. Normally this just means getting rid of bags under the eyes, but as you’ll see he went above and beyond his duty of friendship!

So this was the original shot that I picked to be my headshot. It’s not that bad. The pros: I liked the mischievous look in my eyes. It’s very Harmony. I like that the angle tamed the angularity of my nose a bit. AND let’s face it, the girls look good. The cons: I was strapped for cash so the retouch of my hair color didn’t happen before the shots. I’d like to point out that the discoloration did not look THIS bad in person, but when you put very bright lights on me and put a white background behind me this is what you get. I had also walked through a rainstorm to get there and try as I might I could not get the curl to stay or the frizz to leave. There was also the typical things to retouch…such as bags under eyes, my bra poking through, and horror of horrors…some deodorant residue on my dress!

This was the first attempt. I had decided that I was going to dye my hair to match the bright red at the ends of my hair, so Eric matched my roots to the bottom part of my hair and my eyebrows to match. He changed the contrast of the photo so that I wasn’t quite so washed out. I told him to leave my crow’s feet alone. And he did. You can’t really tell online, but if you saw the photo you would see the lines. I like them. They add character. I DO NOT, however, like wrinkles UNDER my eyes. So I had him zap them. He also fixed the bra problem, the deodorant incident, he whitened the whites of my eyes, and in an effort of pure disclosure: he slimmed the bottom of my arm a tiny bit.

So I used the red one for a while. I felt a little silly, like I was trying to look like Jessica Rabbit or something. Instead of  going for the bright red I decided to try for an auburn or brownish red. I dyed it the night before I had a double audition day. I could tell that it was darker than I had anticipated, but it wasn’t until I woke up the next day that I saw how freaking dark it was! This picture is NOT an exaggeration. So I knew I couldn’t show up at auditions with brassy red headshots and dark brown hair. That’s a major NO NO. Eric to the rescue. In about 10 minutes he changed the color of my hair in the headshot to match. With the dark brown hair it looked a little silly with a white background, so we settled on this heather gray instead. I got so many compliments on my headshot that day! Little did they know….well I guess they know now…that Eric had just done some last minute computer wizardry right before I had to walk out the door to get to the auditions. Oh and on a side note…I booked one of the shows from those auditions!

After the color faded a bit it looked more like this and still does. So Eric changed the color again. This is the shot that works for me right now. Of course since I’ve been using it for a while, I’m ready for a change, but that’s just my nature. I get bored. Maybe I’ll return to this:

Sigh….I miss being a blonde.

Okay so I sincerely apologize for posting 8000 pictures of myself. It’s obnoxious. There is a point to it. I wanted to show the skills of my roommate and I also kind of wanted to take away some of the mystery around it. The blonde picture I don’t have an excuse for. I like it. It makes me feel pretty. SO THERE! But seriously, we are constantly barraged with photos of perfect celebrities. Guess what? They’re not perfect. I mean I guess there are people that are more perfect than others, but most of them need a lot of help with make-up, hair, and yes a retoucher. If the above photos can be the same girl as this girl…..(seen with Eric):

…then seriously anyone can be made to look good with the right team.

That is my lesson for the day.

I won’t post another photo of myself until 2011. I promise.

Harmony

Tags: headshot, retouching

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 3:42 am and is filed under Embarrassing stories, Harmony's sage advice, Talented Colleagues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.