On the newsstand this week is my portrait shoot of Über-DJ David Guetta photographed for the London Observer Magazine shot when Guetta was headlining the Ultra Music Festival in Miami last month.
Day 1 began with a portrait shoot of the DJ+Producer made famous when his Black Eyed Peas hit song “I Gotta Feeling” blew up on the charts. We had the rooftop of a Miami Beach penthouse suite to ourselves. Like a lot celebrity shoots it was a case of ‘hurry up and wait’ – we set up your shot and then sat back and waited to Guetta, I mean get, our star. Yet you never complain when that gives you the best light of the day. Then he arrived on the windy rooftop, Guetta was concerned about the wind on the roof deck. We did everything we good to block it before deciding the best course was to just go with it. He’s lit with one Octabank from left weighted down with the pack + 2 assistants holding it in place so the wind doesn’t send it out to sea and shot it with my favorite camera set-up for portraits a Sony a900 with a CZ 24-70/2.8 lens. Our portrait shows Guetta doing his best DiCaprio from Titanic.
Day 2 took me back-stage at the Ultra Music Festival where I was told they would allow me onstage with Guetta as long as I stayed out of the spotlight. Wearing all-black, I did my Ninja best to hide out of sight, I held my NEX-5N camera above the speakers or sound board and composed off the LCD which was tilted down toward me capturing Guetta with the massive crowd behind him. I gotta admit it was a blast to go to my photojournalism roots and shoot a bit of reportage again – all the while in the back-stage company of Lil Jon and Paris Hilton.
My thanks the London Observer’s wonderful photo editor Kit Burnett for the gig, to writer Luke Bainbridge, to SONY EMI’s Paul Guimaraes for the access, and to David Guetta for making our shoot Titanic!
Tagged as:
Camera,
CZ 24-70/2.8,
David Guetta,
London Observer,
Magazine,
Music,
Photojournalism,
portrait shoot,
Sony a900,
Sony EMI,
Ultra Music Festival
Our shoot of James Patterson is out in the March 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review. I always love shooting portraits of authors, we spent a very nice hour with the best-selling author at his fab Palm Beach mansion – sharing house renovation horror stories. I left him with a copy of ART & SOUL – we share the same publisher. Though Patterson has sold approximately one billion more books than me, I got Spike Lee, Sam Jackson, Anne Hataway, Kelsey Grammer and over 100 of their friends to write mine for me…
Tagged as:
Art & Soul,
Harvard Business Review,
James Patterson,
portraits of authors
Media Mogul Barry Diller speaks to USA Today about a wide range of Media-related issues ranging from Facebook and Twitter to cable. What I found particularly interesting though were his views on the future of print:
Q: What’s the future of print media in the Internet age?
A: “If you’ve got ink on your hands, which means that you’re a print person, you’re finished. These news-gathering organizations depended upon being the only place in town. And everybody has advertising now. So, it’s a very tough transition.
“You’re going to pay for information that you want. And you’re going to pay directly, which means there’s going to be either micropayments or subscriptions. Advertising in the new world order can’t support much of anything. Therefore, you’re going to have hybrid business models that are going to have subscription revenues and other types of revenues.
I couldn’t agree more. The problem with print on the internet is that everyone is giving away the store for free assuming that banner and click-thru ads will replace the revenue lost from print advertising AND subscriptions.
That’s clearly not been the norm so far which is why layoffs at newspapers are at record pace.
The only Print media that will actually thrive online is media that can actually C-H-A-R-G-E for content just like they did for print. Otherwise expect to see skeleton staffs targeting their resources to reporting that generates the best synergy with online advertising.
Tagged as:
Barry Diller,
Facebook,
Internet,
Media,
Twitter
An international delivery from Japan just showed up from with a stack of the latest issue of Courrier Japon with my photo Richard Branson wearing a spacesuit on Necker Island on the cover and I gotta say, it’s the COOLEST cover I’ve ever had…
I gotta give a shout out to their photo editor Ayumi Nakanish. Nice job! I love the pink type. You guys are my new fave designers!
It’s also in ads on the Tokyo subways this month. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those…
Tagged as:
Branson,
Brian Smith,
Courrier Japon,
Japan,
Necker Island,
Richard Branson,
Space Flights,
Virgin,
Virgin Gallactic
When actor Leslie Nielson suggested wearing a tuxedo for a poolside cover shoot for the March 007 issue of Draft magazine, I couldn’t help but think of Connery, Sean Connery at the Fountainbleau pool in ‘Goldfinger.’ So Nielson got his lager served in a manner befitting a secret agent. Martini Glass and Grooming from my wife, the fab stylist Fazia Ali.
Days like these are what make magazine photography the best gig on the planet…
Tagged as:
Beer,
Brian Smith,
Draft,
Draft Magazine,
Editorial Photography,
Fazia Ali,
Humor,
James Bond,
Leslie Nielsen,
Miami
