In Print: Philippe Starck & Sam Nazarian for Haute Living

Our latest celebrity portrait shoot for the cover of Haute Living Magazine features Philippe Starck & Sam Nazarian photographed at SLS Brickell Hotel in downtown Miami. With all due respect to Apple’s Jony Ive, Starck is THE God of Design. The last time I photographed Starck, was on a beach in Puerto Vallarta. This time, it was opening night at the SLS Brickell

Like many celebrity photo shoots, time is at a premium. We’d have 30 minutes to shoot three portraits. A cover shot of Philippe & Sam together, a full page opener of Philippe alone and a full page portrait of Sam. When faced with little time to shoot. You show up early. Scout the Place. And pick your spots.

When you’ve got lots of set-up time and a short time to shoot, there’s a tendency to “over-think” the location and keep changing right up the the shoot. Often you’re better off to stick with the first thing that catches your eye.

The spot in the hotel that jumped out at me was Jean Philippe Hazard’s art piece “Purse”. I decided it was the background for Starck. Rather than removing the velvet rope encircling the piece during final prep for the party, I decided to keep the velvet robe so Starck would appear to be on display.

Philippe Starck photographed at SLS Brickell in Miami for Haute Living Magazine. (Click to Enlarge)
Sony a7RII camera + Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA Lens | 1/125 sec | f/13 | ISO 100

Next, for a totally different look, we moved down the hall to photograph Sam Nazarian in the hallway against the vertical stripe wallpaper.

Sam Nazarian photographed at SLS Brickell in Miami for Haute Living Magazine. (Click to Enlarge)
Sony a7RII camera + Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA Lens | 1/125 sec | f/16 | ISO 100

We headed down to shoot the cover shot in the lobby and everything’s going smoothly…until the elevator I was riding in with Haute Living CEO and Publisher Kamal Hotchandani dropped a floor and came to a crashing stop. I guess even elevators get opening night jitters…Always expect the unexpected whenever you’re on a celebrity photo shoot!

Philippe Starck & Sam Nazarian photographed at SLS Brickell for Haute Living Miami. (Click to Enlarge)
Sony a7RII camera + Sony FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA Lens | 1/125 sec | f/13 | ISO 100

The original plan was to shoot the cover on seamless, but I’ll take a textured wall over background paper any day. HUGE THANKS to Hadley, my wonderful editor at Haute Living, and to our team for another great cover shoot! Cheers!!! Click here to check out the Cover Story at Haute Living