The Creative Coalition

The Celebrity Portrait: 15 Minutes With Fame

by Brian Smith on June 23, 2009

THE CELEBRITY PORTRAIT: 15 MINUTES WITH FAME
with Sony Artisan of Imagery Brian Smith
When: 3-5pm, July 7, 2009
Location: B & H Photo, 420 9th Ave, New York, NY 10001

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Brian Smith has been photographing with the famous and infamous faces of celebrities for the past two decades. Smith will share his favorite celebrity portraits and the stories behind them. He will discuss the importance that styling, hair & make-up and location play in adding production value to his shoots and ways to maximize the re-licensing value of the images.

He will also show his latest work ART & SOUL shot in partnership with The Creative Coalition and Sony featuring portraits of celebrities alongside their hand-written thoughts about the importance of the arts. Smith photographed a series of 85 celebrity portraits over 6 days in Los Angeles and New York. In May of this year, members of The Creative Coalition took the book to the White House and Congress to lobby for support of the arts. Smith will discuss the story behind the commission, his approach to the shoot, and the significance of being able to use his photographs for arts advocacy.

Brian Smith is a Sony Artisan of Imagery and President of Editorial Photographers. His work can be seen at www.briansmith.com

Tagged as: 15 Minutes With Fame, B & H Photo, Books, Brian Smith, briansmith.com, Celebrity Photographer, Celebrity portraits, Editorial Photographer, People Photography, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, Sony Artisan of Imagery, Speaking Appearances, The Celebrity Portrait, The Creative Coalition

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Is it Time for another WPA?

by Brian Smith on May 18, 2009

in Books

Maybe it’s time for a new WPA…

The last time America was mired in an economic crisis like the one we face today, the Works Progress Administration was created to put America back to work. The Works Progress Administration brought us The Federal Arts Project (FAP) maintained more than 100 community art centers which produced 2,566 murals, 17,744 sculptures, 108,099 paintings and 240,000 prints from 1936 to 1943 creating a new awareness of and appreciation for American art.

Not only did the WPA put artists and Artisans back to work, it left lasting symbols of civic pride.

During The Creative Coalition’s May 2009 visit to Capitol Hill, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) mentioned the Timberline Lodge was built as part of the WPA and is an enduring source of pride in the community. A WPA mural by Grant Wood graced the wall of the college library of the small town where I grew up.

The Works Progress Administration was also responsible of the Farm Service Administration which resulted in some of the best photographs of the 20th century from the FSA photographers Dorthea Lange, Berenice Abbott, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Carl Mydans and Gordon Parks.

"Migrant Mother" by Dorthea Lange/FSA - Nipomo, California 1936

American Gothic 2008: Foreclosure of America

“Foreclosure of the American Dream” Merced, California 2008

The Creative Coalition Executive Director Robin Bronk writes in the foreword of Art & Soul:

“When faced with a collapsing economy, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to put Americans in all lines of work back on the job. Instead of singling out artists as somehow frivolous and unimportant to our nation’s economy, he instituted a host of programs designed to put federal funds into the arts, employing America’s creative talent and leaving a cultural legacy that endures still today.

“The highpoint of this commitment was the Works Progress Administration’s Federal One program, which put thousands of Americans to work in the arts. The government program was a lifeline for Jackson Pollock, Burt Lancaster, Sidney Lumet, Ralph Ellison, Studs Terkel, John Cheever, Saul Bellow, and thousands of other artists across the country.

“These programs created much-needed jobs in the immediate term, but they did much more. They fostered great talents that otherwise may have been lost. The work of the many great artists supported by the government in the 1930s still benefits us today. Their contributions to our culture endure, and their successful careers resulted in employment for many others in the years that followed.

“We cannot forget this lesson of our not-so-distant history. Faced with an economic downturn of staggering proportions, some attack any help for the arts as waste, ignoring the millions of Americans who earn their livings and support their families through their artistic endeavors and arts-related enterprises.”

Tagged as: Art, Art & Soul, Arthur Rothstein, Artisans, artists, Berenice Abbott, Books, Carl Mydans, Dorthea Lange, Gordon Parks, Jeff Merkley, Marion Post Wolcott, Oregon, Photographers, Photography, Senator, The Creative Coalition, Walker Evans, Works Progess Administration, WPA

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Matthew Modine Walks in Your Shoes

by Brian Smith on May 11, 2009

in Celebrity Portrait Photography

I ran into Matthew Modine at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Barry Levinson’s documentary PoliWood. After the screening, Matthew took the stage with several of his follow actors and director Barry Levinson to speak about the film. I loved Matthews’ response to a question about why Hollywood was…so…liberal.

I loved Matthew’s response. As he sees it, actors spend most of their lives preparing for a role – slipping in and out of different characters in all walks of life. When you’re constantly walking in the shoes of another person, you can’t help but have empathy for your fellow man.

Matthew’s words rang true. In fact the words he spoke hit very close to home. As a magazine photographer, I’m constantly dropping into the lives of the people I photograph. I’d have to say that the best part of my job is that one day it could be a conservative billionaire, the next day a rapper. This has given me an opportunity to meet people from every sector of society – even if it’s a just a brief glimpse. I’ve witnessed the best and the worst of humanity and come to realize that on my worst days, I’m luckier than most.

One thing that I learned the first time I met Matthew is that he’s quite a good photographer himself. Matthew showed up on the set of Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 Vietnam War masterpiece Full Metal Jacket, in which he starred as Private Joker, armed with his weapon, his gun and his Rollei. You can read Matthew’s behind-the-scenes account of the making of the motion picture and see his photographs in his book Full Metal Jacket Diary. It’s a wonderfully revealing look inside the movie making process. If you’ve ever been curious about how movies are made, or what it was like to work with Stanley Kubrick, Matthew’s book lifts the curtains and takes you inside.

I shot this photo of Matthew a few years ago as he was preparing for a role in Arthur Miller’s final play Finishing the Picture which Miller wrote as a thinly-veiled autobiographical examination of the time Miller and his then-wife Marilyn Monroe spent shooting The Misfits. For this shoot, we went old-school, shooting with a 1950s Graflex Super D camera and Polaroid positive/negative film.

Matthew Modine

We shot this while Matthew was filming Transporter 2 across the street from me. Matthew and Amber Valletta were my movie “neighbors” in the film. If you watch closely, you can catch a glimpse of our house in the background of the driveway kidnapping scene…

Tagged as: Amber Valletta, Barry Levinson, Books, Film, Full Metal Jacket, Full Metal Jacket Diary, magazine photographer, Matthew Modine, PoliWood, Premiere, Stanley Kubrick, The Creative Coalition, Transporter 2, Tribeca Film Festival

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Mr Smith Goes to Washington

by Brian Smith on May 7, 2009

in Books

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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American PHOTO features Haven House Celebrity Shoot in May/June 2009 issue

by Brian Smith on April 27, 2009

in Hype

My thanks to American PHOTO magazine’s Editor-in-Chief David Schonauer for the great feature about our celebrity shoot for the ART & SOUL project in their current May/June 2009 issue. Along with Sony and The Creative Coalition, American PHOTO’s publisher Jeffrey Roberts was a key organizer of the project – my thanks to him for his support.

It just goes to show that life sometimes takes your full circle, since in my younger days when I was named one of American PHOTO’s “New Faces” in magazine photography.

Brian Smith in American PHOTO magazine May/June 2009

Tagged as: American PHOTO, Art & Soul, Brian Smith, David Schonauer, Editorial Photography, Haven House, Jeffrey Roberts, Miami Photographer, Oscar Week, People Photography, The Creative Coalition

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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