Blanche Mackey

“With beauty shots, it’s all about the beauty. But with headshots, it’s about the humanity,” says esteemed New York headshot photographer Blanche Mackey. “You need to have an insight into someone and be able to get your finger on the pulse of who they are in a relatively short time. If you don’t make that connection, if you don’t have that particular talent, it’s very difficult to get a headshot that really shows who the person might be. Not simply just what they look like. You see many beautiful headshots where people just look gorgeous, but the lights are on and no one is home. You have no idea who this person is past what they look like. That is not a successful headshot.”

Blanche knows about successful headshots. She’s been taking them for quite some time, and is one of the major go-to photographers for actors and models who are looking to take their personal marketing to the next level.

A native of Manhattan who nurtured a life-long love of photography, Blanche has managed to forge a career – and a loyal following – in a business where many come and go.

“Photographers go out of business because no one returns,” she says. “I’ve stayed around because people come back. I just shot somebody yesterday where the first time I shot her was thirteen years ago. She’s come back to me every three years since then.”

She and many others return to Blanche like the birds in spring. Those who swear by her work do so because it is natural and appealing – something that casting directors crave. And even though the world of photography has morphed into a new dimension since Blanche first began clicking, she has managed to stay way ahead of the learning curve.

“The digital age, of course, has streamlined things,” Blanche says. “It’s much easier for clients. There is no waiting for the film to come back. You can look at things as you’re shooting. It has become sort of foolproof. That’s some of the best parts of it but also some of the worst parts of it. Because it’s fool-proof, any fool can get a digital camera and say they are a photographer, if they come out of college and they took Photoshop. However, the cream rises to the top, and the bad gets weeded out after a time. The market, particularly headshots, has gotten so glutted, because everyone thinks they can do it.”

After a short stint as a print journalist and a long soul-searching trip to Mexico, Blanche found her career love connection.

“I started going nuts and started shooting,” she says. I couldn’t put the camera down. It was always people, but it was a lot of street shooting at that time.I wanted to be a fine-arts photographer, but I knew that making a living as a fine-arts photographer was going to be a lot harder than finding some sort of niche. Being a waitress at the time to support myself, I was working with a lot of young models and actors, so I started shooting them. I started building a portfolio that way. They were friends and friends of friends.

“Then I found the studio that I currently have (526 West 26th Street), which I have been in for fourteen years now. Thirteen years ago, the neighborhood was all transvestite hookers. A bit seedy. But great spaces, and you knew that. Now, all these years later, it’s the hottest neighborhood in the city. It’s full of art galleries and clubs. It’s gotten very hip and very expensive. My landlords have been very kind to me, though. And they have not jacked the rent out of the ceiling so I can actually stay here. I’m just in the heart of it now, which is really nice.”

Her studio may be cozy, but Blanche brings a whole world of shooting experience into the space. She learned from some of the best photographers in New York.

“I had the bug and this is what I wanted to do,” she says. “The miracle was, I had a friend who I went to have lunch with at The Riviera Café down in the Village. I’ll never forget this because it was such a turning point for me. She was dating a photographer. He was a young, hot, fashion photographer. I don’t remember his name. I wouldn’t know him if he stood up in my soup. He came along while we were having lunch, and I had a whole bunch of photos from Mexico that I was showing her. So he said, ‘oh, photos, let me see!’ He was looking through them and he said to me, ‘are you a photographer? You should be. You have what you can’t teach anybody. You have an amazing eye. These photos are beautiful.’ This stranger out of nowhere is the person who actually gave me permission to go live my dream.”

She soon connected with theatrical photographer Martha Swope, whom Blanche calls “the doyenne of Broadway photography.” With Swope, Blanche became a staff photographer and shot such stage performers as The Blue Man Group, The Alvin Ailey Dancers, The American Ballet Theater, and Shakespeare in the Park.

“Martha was a really wonderful mentor,” Blanche says. “Very generous. After almost five years of working for her, I wanted to go out on my own. Headshots were most accessible in terms of making a living. Martha knew I had a propensity for it, Whatever headshots came into the studio, she would give to me. I became the studio headshot photographer. So I started to develop a client base and a name.”

Today, Blanche handles a large and loyal list of actors and models, as well as a as a dedicated following of commercial print and lookbook clients. As well, she is enjoying a burgeoning career as a child photographer.

Her advice for young actors and models is rock solid, as she feels that attitude alone will reflect in the photos taken.

“Don’t go into it because you seek fame and fortune and glory and parties,” she says. “Do it because it’s something you really think you want to do. If you’re modeling and you’re not having fun, and you’re not fully, one-hundred per cent there, then you are not going to get good pictures, no matter what the photographer does. That’s because you have to bring your spirit to it.

“If you’re just kind of showing up and think it’s going to be easy, like ‘I was born beautiful so I can be a model,’ it doesn’t work that way. Many beautiful people don’t make it as models, and that’s because they don’t have the passion or the discipline, or they get too involved in the life of the model instead of the work of the model. They are out partying until three or four or five in the morning and showing up at the jobs looking like hell. And late. And the photographer doesn’t want to work with them again.

“You really need to be professional and focused and serious, with anything and any job you do. A lot of young people have to understand the work ethic, and it takes a lot of work. Just because you’re great looking and you’re twenty years old, doesn’t’ automatically mean that the world is yours, particularly with young people where the emphasis is all on their beauty. I think it is a curse in some ways, when the first thing everybody reacts to is beauty. Then their value system gets skewed.

“I think the people who are healthiest in the business are people who come from families where they are not making appearance the most important part of who they are, and they are teaching them to work hard and teaching values past the surface. And then they can go into the modeling world, which, yes, on some levels is superficial, but it’s also a very important part of our economy, our aesthetic as a society. But nothing is easy. Nothing ever worth anything is easy.”

To see more of Blanche’s work, go to www.blanchemackey.com