The Arts

Mr Smith Goes to Washington

by Brian Smith on May 7, 2009

I’m in Washington, D.C. today with The Creative Coalition joining a delegation of artists from The Creative Coalition headed Creative Coalition president – actor Tim Daly along with Dana Delany, Alfre Woodard, Matthew Modine, Kerry Washington and Rachael Leigh Cook presenting a mock-up of my book ART & SOUL to The White House and Congress to support public funding for arts and arts education.

The Creative Coalition in Washington, D.C. "ART & SOUL" photographed by Brian Smith for The Creative Coalit

The book features my portraits of celebrities including Tim Daly, Alfre Woodard, Kerry Washington, Dana Delany, Tony Bennett, Anne Hathaway, Zooey Deschanel, Alyssa Milano, Ellen Burstyn and David Hyde Pierce accompanied by handwritten personal testimonials from each artist which express their support for the importance of the arts in our lives.

The project was made possible through generous sponsorship from Hachette Filipacchi Media, American PHOTO and Sony. My thanks to Kayla Lindquist, of Sony Artisan’s of Imagery program, Robin Bronk, Barbara Horvath and Briana Mulherin of The Creative Coalition, Jeffrey Roberts, Al Silvestri, Alissa Reynolds, Anna Martin, Athos Kyriakides, David Schonauer and Russell Hart of American PHOTO and Hachette Filipacchi Media, Eileen Gittins and Robin Goldberg of Blurb, Arri Weeks and Matthew Schulert, our fabulous digital tech from Splashlight, Joel Warren and Eddie Tricomi and over a dozen hair and make-up artists from Warren-Tricomi and Ted Okada, Steve Sommers, Phil Lubell, Kristen Elder and Mark Weir of Sony. But my biggest and deepest thanks goes to my lovely wife Fazia who always makes sure everyone always look great on our shoots – thanks for believing in me all of these years…

Friday night we’ll all be with director Barry Levinson for the Washington, D.C. premiere of his documentary film PoliWood, which examines the intersection of celebrity and politics. The film debuted last Friday to a sold-out theater at the Tribeca Film Festival. Catch it if you can! Things wrap up Saturday with the White House Correspondents’ Brunch and Dinner

Tagged as: Alfre Woodard, Art & Soul, Barry Levinson, Books, Brian Smith, Congress, Dana Deleany, Kerry Washington, make-up artists, Matthew Modine, PoliWood, Sony a900, Ted Okada, The Arts, The Creative Coalition, Tim Daly, Warren-Tricomi, Washington DC

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Cupcakes from Anne Hathaway

by Brian Smith on March 18, 2009

in Celebrity Portrait Photography

We’re in New York, shooting more celebrities for The Creative Coalition’s book “Art & Soul” which will be distributed to President Obama and Congress this May. Assignments this good are really rare. Even though I’ve been l blessed with more than my share of unbelievable assignments in my career, shooting portraits of so many Oscar winners, Tony winners, Grammy winners and Emmy winners was about as cool gig as I can imagine.

Photographing Anne Hathaway is the sort of experience that can hardly be topped, except of course when Anne showed up at our shoot with a box of her favorite cupcakes for our crew. Thanks Annie for being even sweeter than I’d imagined. Thanks also to Anne’s hair stylist Ted Gibson. Not only is Ted one of the top stylists in the country, but he knows how to work a wind machine…

Actress Anne Hathaway and photographer Brian Smith

After that we headed uptown to Tony Bennett’s Central Park apartment where we talked about what the arts has meant to him, both as a singer and as an artist. Tony credits Frank Sinatra for giving his career a big break. As a way of giving back Tony founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in his hometown of Astoria, Queens.

Singer Tony Bennett

In the end we shot over 9,000 images and 350 gigs of RAW data without a single slowdown or problem. During the shoots, the artists in this book and I rarely spoke of fame, fortune or fabulous performances. We spoke about their childhoods and what led them to where they are today. Regardless of whether they grew up in small towns and large cities, rich or poor, their lives were all shaped and influenced by the arts and the artists who influenced their careers.

My thanks go out to Ted Okada, Steve Sommers, Phil Lubell, Kristen Elder and Mark Weir of Sony for their support of this project, Kayla Lindquist, director of Sony Artisans of Imagery program, Jeffrey Roberts of American PHOTO, Al Silvestri, Alissa Reynolds and Anna Martin of Hachette Filipacchi Media, Eileen Gittins of Blurb, and special thanks to Robin Bronk and Barbara Horvath of The Creative Coalition.

EQUIPMENT:
Sony a900 Cameras
Sony Zeiss 24-70/2.8 Zoom
Sony Zeiss 85/1.4
Sony Zeiss 16-35/2.8 Zoom
Profoto 7A 2400 Packs
Profoto 7 Heads

Tagged as: American PHOTO, Anne Hathaway, Books, Brian Smith, Celebrity, Hachette Filipacchi Media, People Photography, Photographer Brian Smith, Sony, Sony Artisans of Imagery, The Arts, The Creative Coalition, Tony Bennett

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Art & Soul Begins at Haven House

by Brian Smith on February 20, 2009

in Celebrity Portrait Photography

I’ve just wrapped a three-day shoot at Haven House in Beverly Hills photographing portraits of celebrities for The Creative Coalition during Oscar Week thanks to the generous sponsorship of Sony and Hachette Filipacchi Media.

Our crew included my wife Fazia who always makes certain everyone looked fabulous on our shoots, Kayla Lindquist, Director of Sony’s Artisans of Imagery program, produced the shoot and made certain even the smallest detail was under control, Matthew Schulert, our fabulous digital tech from Splashlight never missed a beat through 5,370 exposures, Joel Warren and Eddie Tricomi and over a dozen hair and make-up artists from Warren-Tricomi.

We photographed 68 celebrities over a three-day period in Los Angeles where we shot 5,370 exposures with over 200 gigs of raw images using Sony’s a900 camera. That’s a great test of the durability and quality of a camera. The a900 never missed a beat.

The lenses are quite simply the sharpest lenses I’ve ever used. I love all of Sony’s Zeiss glass, but I’m becoming particularly fond of Sony’s Zeiss 24-70/2.8. I was able to shoot very quickly on this project using that lens to shoot 90% of the images for the book. This lens is sharper than prime lenses in that range and it absolutely blows away the competition. The remaining images for the book were shot with Sony’s Zeiss 85/1.4 that I kept mounted on second a900 body.

When you imagine shooting in a Beverly Hills mansion, you can only envision big massive rooms. Yet our shoot was relegated to a less than opulent 9×14’ maid’s quarters.

Haven House Behind-the-Scenes

Since the biggest part of photography is problem solving, we had to find a way to make it work. I decided to make our small pace even cozier by wrapping the entire set in black. Normally, the idea of using a DSLR to shoot celebrities dressed in black against a black background is a recipe for disaster. Other DSLR tend to block up in the shadows, but one of the things I love about the a900 is that it holds unbelievable detail in the shadows, so I was confident we could pull it off.

Highlights included Kerry Washington and Tichina Arnold fighting it out for bragging rights in a pose-off. For the record, in situations like that, it’s actually the photographer who wins.

Kerry Washington and Tichina Arnold

Speaking of posing, celebrity stylist Philip Bloch might very well still be posing in front of the camera if they hadn’t threatened to turn the power off on us.

My thanks to all of the celebrities who took part…Alfre Woodard, Alyssa Milano, Amy Collins, Barry Bostwick, Benji Schwimmer, Chris Mann, Damian Bichir, Dana Delany, Daniel Stern, David Hyde Pierce, DeRay Davis, Oscar-winning writer/producer Dustin Lance Black, Fisher Stevens, Frances Fisher, Gilles Marini, Gina Gershon, Harry Hamlin, James Denton, Jamie Kennedy, Jason Ritter, Jeannine Kaspar, Jeffrey Ross, Kerry Washington, Kim Kardashian, Kyson Lee, Mary Murphy, Paula Abdul, Paul Hipp, Robert Davi, Sharon Lawrence, Stephen Collins, Syd Butler, Tamala Jones, Taraji P. Henson, Tichina Arnold, Tim Daly, Wendie Malick, Vik Sahay, Zoey Deschanel, Celebrity Stylists Philip Bloch, Joel Warren, Edward Tricomi, Producer Tom Molloy, Gay-rights activist Cleve Jones, WWE Wrestlers Cody Rhodes, John Morrison, Kofi Kingston, Ted DiBiase, Jr., The Miz and WWE Divas Kelly Kelly, Maria Kanellis, Maryse Ouellet and Melina Perez.

Quincy Jones has suggested that it might be an opportune time to lobby President Barak Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. While many other countries have had Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, the United States has never created such a position. This country needs the arts–now more than ever.

EQUIPMENT:
Sony a900 Cameras
Sony Zeiss 24-70/2.8 Zoom
Sony Zeiss 85/1.4
Sony Zeiss 16-35/2.8 Zoom
Profoto 7A 2400 Packs
Profoto 7 Heads

Tagged as: Alfre Woodard, Alyssa Milano, American PHOTO, Amy Collins, Art & Soul, Barry Bostwick, Benji Schwimmer, Brian Smith, Celebrity, Chris Mann, Cody Rhodes, Creative Coalition, Damian Bichir, Dana Delany, Daniel Stern, David Hyde Pierce, DeRay Davis, Divas, Edward Tricomi, Fisher Stevens, Frances Fisher, Gilles Marini, Gina Gershon, Hachette Filipacchi Media, Harry Hamlin, Haven House, James Denton, Jamie Kennedy, Jason Ritter, Jeannine Kaspar, Jeffrey Ross, Joel Warren, John Morrison, Kelly Kelly, Kerry Washington, Kim Kardashian, Kofi Kingston, Kyson Lee, Maria Kanellis, Mary Murphy, Maryse Ouellet, Melina Perez, Oscar-winning writer/producer Dustin Lance Black, Paul Hipp, Paula Abdul, People Photography, Philip Bloch, Robert Davi, Sharon Lawrence, Sony, Stephen Collins, Syd Butler, Tamala Jones, Taraji P. Henson, Ted DiBiase Jr, The Arts, The Creative Coalition, The Miz, Tichina Arnold, Tim Daly, Vik Sahay, Wendie Malick, WWE