Cortney Pants goes All Access for this look at my X Factor photo shoot with Sony NEX-5N! Check out our set and my portraits of all the X Factor contestants at the end.
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Interviews
A HUGE ART & SOUL THANKS to Liz Kelly for this wonderful interviews at the ART & SOUL Los Angeles Book Launch at the Sony Store at Century City. Nice Interviews with actors Tim Daly, Nia Vardolis, Richard Schiff, TCC’s Robin Bronk and me. Huge thanks to Schiff for the nice mention of my wife Fazia.
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HUGE SHOUTOUT to Me Ra Koh for this fabulous interview about my ART & SOUL project. We’ll be chatting live tomorrow night October 6 from 8-10pm ET (5-7pm PT). To read more of Me Ra’s interview with Brian Smith click here.
CLICK HERE to sign on for our online chat.
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If you missed my Webinar ‘Stop Waiting for Your Big Break’ yesterday with PhotoShelter CEO Allen Murabayashi it’s re-posted on PhotoShelter now. Allen and I talk about the way to advance your career through series of small breaks that take you work to the next level. As a long-time PhotoShelter user, I’m not only thankful fro their great product, but for the many ways they give back to the photography community. It’s wonderful to be a part of the family!
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Lynne Eodice of Rangefinder magazine wrote a very nice profile of me in the July issue of Rangefinder where we talk about my approach to portrait photography and how I got to this point.
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What day would be complete without another post from me about Burlesque?
American Photo has become the latest magazine to profile my photographs of Burlesque with this antastic article by Franklin Melendez in the July/August issue follows my burlesque shoots from 1993 up until now with photos of Tempest Storm, Dixie Evans, Inga Ingenue and the Amazing Knicker Kittens.
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HUGE THANKS to Ab “Scorsese” Sesay of the MAC Group for this fantastic behind-the-scenes look of my shoot with Burlesque dancers Angie Pontani, Amber Ray, Gal Friday, Jo Boobs Weldon, Peekaboo Pointe, Darlinda Just Darlinda and Bunny Love the latest additions to my Legends of Burlesque project which dates back to a 1993 shoot of Burlesque Legend Dixie Evans.
Great to see Angie, Darlinda and Jo again. Last June, we shot Angie rockin’ her Tiara as the reining Miss Exotic World and Darlinda as half of the fabulous Schlepp Sisters sporting rollergirl chic. Great to have a bit of one-on-one time with Jo since normally when I see her, she’s always working and I was always shooting, and she did a great job wrangling all our dancers. Gal Friday was glitterrific. Special thanks to the one-and-only Satan’s Angel for sending lovely Amber Ray our way!
What better way to show of how well the new X-Rite Color Checker Passport handles skintones, huh?
CREW:
Stylist: Fazia Ali
Assistants: Ryan Brooks and Melanie McLean
Video: Alejandro Gomez and Kirby Ferguson
Photographer: Brian Smith
Director: Ab “Scorsese” Sesay
EQUIPMENT:
Sony a900 Cameras
Sony Zeiss 24-70/2.8
Sony Zeiss 85/1.4
Sony Zeiss 135/1.8
Profoto Pro-8A packs
Profoto Pro Flash Heads
Profoto Giant Umbrella Silver 7’
Profoto Zoom-Spot
Profoto Ringflash
X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
X-Rite i1 Xtreme
Eizo CG241W Display
Apple 13.3″ Macbook Pro Laptop Computer
LOCATION:
Industria Studio 5
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With the Deadline quickly approaches for Blurb’s Photography Book Now Competition, Suzanne Caballero Knowlton of Blurb interviewed me for the Blurberati Blog about what makes a great photo book with shout outs to Elliott Erwitt, Irving Penn, Albert Watson, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Sebastião Salgado and publishers Steidl, Tashcen, teNeues and Assouline.
I’m happy to join an all-star panel of Photography Book Now 2010 judges Darius Himes, Monica Allende, David Fahey, Michael Mack, Lesley Martin, Susan Meiselas, Erin O’Toole, Martin Parr and Judith Puckett-Rinella as Brian Smith Juror Number Ten.
Get your entries in NOW to Blurb’s Photography Book Now 2010 Competition! The deadline is July 15th…ENTER NOW!
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Big XOX and Thanks to the lovely Jo Weldon for this fab interview in Burlesque Daily about my photographs of the Legends of Burlesque , Jo is the Founder and Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque. I’ve seen Jo for years but every time we’re together, she’s working and I’m working – so it was wonderful to have a moment to chat.
Burlesque Legend Dixie Evans
Q. How did you become interested in photographing burlesque and what was the first burlesque photo you took?
After a decade of shooting Olympics, Superbowls, NBA FInals and conflict in Haiti, I was transitioning into shooting celebrity portrait photography for magazines like Rolling Stone, GQ and Esquire. One day I was watching CNN and I saw an interview with Dixie Evans and I think how great it would be to photograph someone like her. Well you can either just sit around and wait for something like that to happen or you can just go out and do it. So I called Dixie up and she said, she’d love to be photographed. So the next time I was shooting in LA, my wife Fazia and I headed out Route 66 to Helendale and spent an absolutely wonderful afternoon photographing Dixie. It was the kind of afternoon that can’t possibly better…until Dixie says it’s too bad that we missed all her friends who’ll be coming out next month. All of a sudden our great shoot just got better…
Q. What was it like the first time you photographed at Exotic World?
We came back to Helendale a couple months later to shoot our first Burlesque Reunion. My wife and I met Tempest Storm when we were checking into our hotel and quickly became friends. Over at Dixie’s ranch, I began looking at the rows of publicity photos by ‘Bruno of Hollywood’ and was struck by how much they looked like the great Hollywood photos of the 30s and 40s. I realized I had a chance to put the burlesque legends back into the spotlight where they belonged.
Burlesque Legend Tempest Storm
Q. What about burlesque has held your interest for so long?
Like Jazz, Burlesque is a pure American art form. Burlesque is Americana. I started shooting it because I didn’t want to see a part of Americana fade away. I’m overjoyed to see burlesque alive and flourishing today.
Q. What are some of your favorite photos from this project?
That first shoot of Dixie will always be a favorite, you know what people always say about your first…. Back in the early days, we always shot the legends outside – either in the desert or where they lived. We went to Long Beach to shoot Jeannine “The Eyeful Tower” France. She didn’t really have any costumes left and while she was happy to shoot in her bra, she didn’t want stand outside in her neighborhood like the crazy old lady in her underwear. So I ended up her in her kitchen with a statue of the Virgin Mary in the background, At first, I didn’t even show the photo since it was so different from everything else, but over the years it’s become on of my favorites. There is something about it that’s really sad and it just breaks my heart.
Burlesque Legend Jeannine "The Eyefull Tower" France
Q. What do you find to be some of the most interesting aspects of shooting burlesque?
The first time we met Dee Milo, I saw her standing in her red sequin dress and I showed her some of the photos we’d done. She was just about to go on stage, but said she’d do a shoot once she finished her act. So she comes right off stage straight to us in her g-string and pasties and says she was ready. I asked her to put her red dress back on and that was probably the first time in recorded history that a photographer talked a pretty lady back into her clothes…
Burlesque Legend Dee Milo
Q. How does it compare with shooting celebrities, live sports or nude golf?
The greatest thing about being a photographer is dropping into the lives of all kinds of people from different backgrounds for a few minutes or hours. I can’t think of a better way to learn about the world around you.
One of the projects I’ve been shooting over the past year is an arts advocacy project called ‘Art & Soul’. I’ve photographed portraits of over 250 celebrities from the entertainment industry for a book I’m doing with The Creative Coalition that will pair my portraits of celebrities with their hand-written testimonials about the importance of the arts. We just had a sneak preview exhibit of the photographs at the Library of Congress as part of a star-studded evening that included live performances by Adrian Grenier, Patricia Arquette, Spike Lee, Dana Delany, TIm Daly, Steven Weber, Gloria Ruben, CCH Pounder, Cheryl Hines, Omar Epps and Marlon Wayans.
Photographing that project is similar in many ways to the portraits we shot backstage at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend. Even if you only have a few minutes with someone, you have to find a way to capture their personality. Shooting Nude Golf shoot for Sports Illustrated was really a hoot and it reminded me a lot of the early burlesque shoots because the people were so much fun. We all laughed together and had a wonderful time.
Q. Who have you shot lately?
We shot Satan’s Angel doing her fire act on stage at Exotic World, but you can’t really contain someone like Angel to a stage. So we told Angel we wanted to come out to Palm Springs to photograph her the next time we were in LA. Last July I was out in LA to shoot of one of the actors from Mad Men’ and so I called herl up to see if she was up to twirl fire for us and she said sure, c’mon out. Well July in Palm Springs is like 120 degrees in the shade but Angel was game to give it a go, so I discovered that the only thing hotter than Palm Springs in July is a burlesque dancer twirling tassels of fire.
Burlesque Legend Satan's Angel
More recently, we just did a wonderful shoot in New York with Angie Pontani, Amber Ray, Bunny Love, Darlinda, Gal Friday, Peekaboo Pointe and the one-and-only Jo Boobs Weldon…
Q. Any regrets?
I wish we’d started earlier. We missed a lot of legends. My wife and I became fascinated Lili St Cyr. The vintage photographs of Lili are amazing. We tried everything we could to photograph her, even Dixie reached out but we sadly couldn’t ever get her to say yes. I think she wanted to be remembered the way she looked in her prime. I wish we could have convinced her that she’d still be just as beautiful in our eyes.
Q. Do you think you’ll continue to photograph burlesque?
Burlesque is so much fun to shoot that’s kind of like asking if you want to continue to enjoy living, isn’t it?
Thank you for your time!
You are very welcome Jo Boobs…
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Maria Piscopo interviewed me along with my friends Brian Smale, Robbie McClaran and Shawn G. Henry about changes in the editorial photography market for her piece ‘The Business Of Editorial Photography: Telling A Story With Images” in the January 2010 Shutterbug Magazine.
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