Hi, I'm Kirill Kozlov.

I photograph actors. I have done since 2006, from my studio in Seven Sisters, North London — and the way I do it was decided long before I ever shot a headshot.

I took my degree in cinematography at VGIK in Moscow — the world's oldest film school, in a country that no longer exists. My course master was Alexander Knyazhinsky, the director of photography on Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker. (1979) . He spoke about honesty and texture in the same breath, and insisted you could not have one without the other: a face lit honestly keeps its texture, and texture is what makes a face believable.

I began my career in film and television, shooting on celluloid — where light, timing and composition had to be instinct, because there was no screen to check. I still take on select projects as a Director of Photography. Moving between motion and stills keeps the eye sharp, and it keeps my headshots rooted in cinema rather than in photography formulas.

What that means for your headshot

A casting director may look at hundreds of faces in a day, most of them lit exactly alike. The face with its texture left in is the one the eye goes back to. So my headshots are lit the way cinema is lit: skin looks like skin, light behaves the way it does in life, and the person in the frame is the person who walks into the casting room. Nothing over-retouched, nothing performed — a photograph casting can put weight on.

Range, not one look

A good session should not leave you with a single usable frame. We work through the casting brackets you can honestly occupy — the lead, the best friend, the one who is thinking more than they say — shifting wardrobe, light and register as we go, so you leave with a true spectrum rather than one expression repeated.

The session

Structured, unhurried, collaborative. I direct you enough that you are never lost in front of the camera — I have spent a career directing faces for the screen — and give you the room to arrive at something truthful. Whether you are still in training or twenty years into the work, the process is the same: calm, precise, and built around how you want to be seen.

Who I work with

I regularly photograph graduates of RADA, Guildhall, LAMDA and other leading drama schools, and actors represented by Curtis Brown, United Agents, Hamilton Hodell and many more. I understand what casting expects right now, and I shape every session around it.

When we work together, my aim is simple: images that are unmistakably you, with the honesty and range that move a career forward.

— Kirill Kozlov

To book a session, email your available dates to mail@kirill.co.uk or call 07927 942 822.

To book your headshot session or for any other
enquiry please email me your available dates
and package you wish to go for to:
mail@kirill.co.uk or call 07927 942 822