A color headshot for a half a buck

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on January 10th, 2009

We were supposed to show up with a headshot this weekend.

We have several beautiful, color headshots printed up on matte finish, photo stock– a few of The Male Half, a few of The Female Half and a handful of the “composites” that show the Halves side-by-side– and they’re in a nice manila envelope… that we left at home.

So… what to do when you’re in Lancaster, PA, and you need a headshot, preferably color, and you don’t want to/can’t possibly return home to fetch one?

Go to Staples.

For $0.49, plus $0.03 tax, they’ll print out a nice, serviceable color 8 X 10, suitable for posting outside the comedy club.

We’ve got wireless here at the hotel, and we had a thumbdrive, and we have downloadable hi-res, color headshots up on the website at all times, so minutes later we were walking out of Staples with an emergency color pic. (We assume that Kinko’s– excuse us… FedEx Office!– would offer the same service for a comparable price. Just don’t try doing it via their online component, unless you have too much hair and you’d like to tear it out in clumps. It’s best to just show up, in person, with the necessary file on a chip or portable media of some kind.)

And we would caution folks to not depend on the hotel wireless. For, although it worked out this time, we recommend having the press kit essentials– headshots, bios, schedule, maybe even a short video– on a thumbdrive dedicated solely to an electronic press kit. Have it with you at all times and you’ll not be dependent on an internet connection. The price of a 1 GB USB thumbdrive has plummeted in recent months– $10, maybe?– so it’s well worth having one.

Color headshots in minutes for a half a buck.

We live in a great world.