Boom! Headshot and a whole lot more

And he brings the Nifty Fifty FTW! Last week I was privileged to shoot some professional head shots for an actor named Bob Olin. Bob is an indy actor, or as he refers to himself, a B-Movie Guy. But Bob is more than that to me. Bob is a person. Bob is talented and passionate about his craft. Bob is a client.

Bob's main gig is as the member of an ensemble cast of The Free Box. The dedicated cast of The Free Box fund the project through two part-time minimum-wage jobs. They meet up 2 to 3 times per month to write, film and edit the episodes. Most of the first two seasons (episodes 1-20) were filmed on location in a shared house in southeast Portland, Oregon. The cast loves what they do and is excited to put together more hilarity and wackiness each month!

Bob has been working onstage for over 30 years in community theaters and various film projects for about 10 years. When he is not at work, filming or auditioning he is involved with the Northwest Civil War Council.

I first met Bob in 1983. I was a freshman in high school and he was senior. We were in choir together and it was his involvement in the drama department that got me interested in arts and theatrics.
 
The first play I was involved in was Mid Summer's Night Dream. It was here that the dead body prank got its legendary status.
 
Bob and a few of the other seniors in the play placed a well crafted dummy in one of the speaker boxes, which were enclosed in the walls halfway up between the cat walk and stage. Bob then invited a few of us gullible freshmen up to the have a peak at the "dead body". It was so well crafted and executed that a few us were actually debating whether or not to call the police or not. Once the cops were mentioned the truth came out quick.
 
 

After running into Bob at one of the civil war reenactments a few years ago he told me he was needing some head shots.
 
He told me of his work with The Free Box project. I friended him on Facebook and started watching some of his work.
 
It didn't take long and I was hooked to The Free Box.
 
Bob contacted me again this year about needing head shots. How could I say no to man that brings so much life to Gene (my favorite Free Box characters)? I couldn't.
 
You can catch some of Bob's other acting roles, like Billy-Joe-Barney-Bob in Bloodsucking Redneck Freaks; Chris/The Demon in The Seekers; The Plain Clothes Cop in Little Blue Bill; Drake in The Corners; The Detective in Just Rewards or as Barry the Prison Cook in No Requests and as the Landlord in Fray.
 
 

Bob is a busy man and maybe with a little help from these photos, he will be even busier. 

 

After the head shots were out of the way, we decided to have a little fun.

 

We wanted to do some promo shots for Gene (his character in The Free Box) but we couldn't figure out how to get some of the props we really wanted to use to work properly.

 

 

 

So we resorted to some dramatic shots of him as a detective.

 

 

Above Detective Bob is looking at the body in the dumpster. Seems like a very familiar scene to me. Reminds me a lot of the dead body.

Here Bob is playing the tough guy and roughing up the bad guy, a make up artist I brought with me, played by Jonathon.

Johnathon wasn't even prepared for this role at all. But he was kind enough to get himself in the shot.

All in all it was a great shoot. We had some fun, created some great photographs and produced some laughs along the way.

Thanks Bob for playing along with my creative direction. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

We will be getting back together to shoot those promo shots of Gene in the fountains.