Photoshoots > 063 – Red Eye (2010)

Tuesday Tips – Where you learn, in all honest detail, the need for organization, planning and composure in a 5 minute portrait. (times are approximate and quotes are paraphrased..)

9:30 a.m. Coming back from another assignment, I’m told that I would have a portrait Zac Efron at 11:00. I bemoan lack of advance notice (which had to happen for reasons too complicated to go into here). Shooting news, I need to quickly shift gears to photograph a celebrity…

9:45 a.m. – Arrive at paper and look for the tilt shift lenses in the pool locker- “Arrggh, Where did they all go?” I grab an 85mm f/1.8 lens, thinking shallow depth of field with my Canon 5DMarkII.

10:00 a.m. – Looking at websites to update myself on what Zac has been doing and what direction he might be wanting to go as an actor. Nice guy? Tough guy? Dark? Light? Serious?

10:15 a.m. – Look at recent pictures of him from a Parade shoot and at other photojournalists’ celebrity portraits to get creative juices flowing. Wow, Jay Clendenin has been doing great work.

10:20 a.m. – Go down to car and rifle through all my equipment and brainstorm what I can do with equipment available. Theorize that a shallow depth of field with high speed sync of softboxes using Canon Speedlites might work. On-camera infra-red controller forms basis of shoot.

10:40 a.m. – Leave for Peninsula Hotel.

10:55 a.m. – Arrive to be greeted immediately by public relations representative. Reporter and I are ushered up to wait in the hallway outside of hotel door. Not ideal. Don’t know what kind of light I’m facing, colors of walls, placement of couches, etc…But in the end, it’s just a hotel room.

Visit Chicago Tribune to read the rest of this interview.

Source: Chicago Tribune