Headshots for Teens and Students
I shoot a lot of teen and early 20 something students in both high school and college. In fact, I offer sizeable discount to students in performing arts programs because I remember how broke I was when I was in a theatre department years ago.
When you're a teenager, your picture should look as young as you are or perhaps a little younger. A director will almost always cast an older person, say someone 25 or so, rather than a teenager, to play teen part if the 25 year old looks young. So, if you're 16 going on 22 what are you thinking? NO ONE IS GOING TO CAST YOU AS SOMEONE OLDER THAN YOU ARE! But you can get cast as someone younger. Stockard Channing played Rizzo, the pregnant teenager in Grease, when she was 34. Hillary Duff was about 17 when she began playing a MIDDLE SCHOOLER in Lizzie McGuire. So, ladies, avoid the make-up and boys, stay a boy.
Smile, watch that posture, don't fuss too much with the hair.
Pimples... this can be a problem. Rather than try to fix this with make-up, I generally fix this with Photoshop. If you've bad acne scars, then we deal with that. Your headshot has to look like you - if your headshot shows you with perfect skin, a casting agent isn't going to be that happy when you walk in looking very different. The same thing for braces - it's best to show them when you have them rather than hide them in the picture and suprise the director with a mouthful of metal. Besides, sometimes a teen part calls for braces - they are a fact of life.
Dress in something comfortable and youthful, but avoid looking trendy. No t-shirts with writing on them. And while you might be into piercings, in movies and plays people with a lot of piercings usually get cast as workers in meth labs. So, unless you are going for those sorts of rolls specifically, pull out the nose ring or whatever hardware you might wear so you've a chance at getting a handsoap commercial or 'Curly' in 'Oklahoma,' and I'll Photoshop out the little hole in your face.