In December 2024, actor Jacque Bischoff booked Distant Era for a big, fun headshot session where we made a variety of looks we loved.
Meet Jacque Bischoff
Jacque and I met in fall 2024 during production photography for Idle Muse Theatre Company’s exceptional production of The Tempest, which we previously covered here:
- The Tempest Production and Press Photography with Idle Muse Theatre Company.
- Archival Photography for The Tempest with Idle Muse Theatre Company, Part 1.
- Archival Photography for The Tempest with Idle Muse Theatre Company, Part 2: Costumes.
- Archival Photography for The Tempest with Idle Muse Theatre Company, Part 3: Lighting and Scenes.
Jacque played one of the six mischievous Ariels in The Tempest. I came to know her when Idle Muse’s Kati Lechner requested makeup for a headshot session and suggested that Jacque be her makeup artist. Jacque had helped create the makeup looks for the Ariels in the show and had worked for Ulta Beauty for several years, where she learned more about makeup than I know, so that sounded good to me. Before that session could happen, however, another Distant Era client needed makeup and hired Jacque to do it.
An Actor Prepares
Jacque wanted new headshots herself, so she booked her own headshot session in advance. This way, she could get her headshots while acclimating to the Distant Era studio environment.
Prior to her session, I asked Jacque about the work she does and the work she wants to do, as this would help me build the session. I promised Jacque we’d make a standard headshot, but my best portraits are the ones where I understand the person I’m photographing. Jacque considered these questions, and we discussed the improv work she does, along with the dramatic work she did in The Tempest; we discussed the roles she tends to get cast in and the ones she wants to play.
After our consultation, Jacque created a Pinterest board showing a variety of looks she liked and a color palette she preferred. With this in mind, I was able to focus our session, eliminating the infinite number of options we might have tried while emphasizing the specific ones we wanted. Red was a color that came out of that communication, so I picked up a red background prior to the session.
Thanks to Jacque’s exceptional communication and preparation, we went into the session with intention, with a strong idea of our direction and what we wanted to capture.
The Session
Jacque arrived with makeup applied and plenty of versatile wardrobe options. We began on a white background for a clean look, for which we tried three variations, which went so well that we moved right on to bright yellow for an even higher energy series with a couple different variations of wardrobe. From there, we changed to our blue hand-painted background and tried two new looks, settling at last on the new red background and a couple different variations there as well.
While I’ve been shooting with my new camera since September, this was my first true studio session with it. I quickly discovered the new quirks during our first look on the white background, adjusted to these, and the rest of the session was smooth sailing, as the new camera’s focusing capabilities freed me up to concentrate on the action.
The Galleries
In addition to being a skilled actor and makeup artist, Jacque is also a great model, so each of our shots was different. At the end of the session, there were so many to choose from, it was hard to pick a favorite. Here’s an example of some of the variety we photographed.
And here’s a small sample of the variety we found on one background.
An All-Star Session
Jacque did amazing work in her session and created so many killer images. Even Garrus the Cat wanted to have his picture taken with Jacque, and he wasn’t even embarrassed to do it in his Christmas cosplay.
I am grateful to Jacque for lending her exceptional communication, diligence, humor, and skill to this wonderful session.
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