The ability to roll with the punches (quickly) and diplomatically allows these veteran photographers to get the best out of their subjects and succeed when a high-pressure shoot turns difficult. Here they discuss their experiences creating great portraits in tough situations.

What do you do when a celebrity—or a publicist—doesn’t like your setup ideas or is difficult?

Chris Buck: “I go into any given shoot with a range of conservative ideas, crazy out there ideas, and all things in between. If I see that they don’t want to do the slightly crazy idea, then I might as well drop the insanely crazy idea! For example, I had a shoot for Esquire’s “What I’ve Learned” column with astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who was difficult and prickly. In situations like that, I’ve learned to always have at least one setup that is purely visual—to do with the lighting or the background. You want something where you can plop them down, light it, and it still works. The final image was of him sitting in front of an unusual wallpaper of a forest scene. I lit it really beautiful and all he had to do was sit there. When all else fails and break out the craft.”

Patrick Harbron: “I just roll with it and figure out something else fast. Years ago I was doing a profile shot of Lyle Lovett and I knew exactly what I wanted. We set up in the basement of a concert hall in Atlanta and when Lyle came in I told him where to sit and he said, ‘Oh that’s not going to work, I’m never photographed on that side of my face.’ I told him we would just turn the setup around and do the same thing, just on the other side of his face. He was actually very nice about it and we talked music while I changed the setup. He did request that only he and I be in the room for the shot but I told him my assistant had to be present as well and he was fine with that. I was supposed to have him for ten minutes and the shoot ended up being 45 minutes long. It was great.”

Elizabeth Messina: “I try to be open and listen to their thoughts. The more comfortable someone is with me, the more likely it is I can capture a truly beautiful moment. I try to be warm and understanding. Nothing compares with a genuine connection. And I always try to be very friendly and easygoing.”

Peter Freed: I was asked to photograph Martin Scorsese in his New York offices. I spoke to his assistant about picture possibilities and asked if I could show up a couple of hours early to scout a good location. We showed up and found a nothing too cinematic about the setting until I opened a door in a storage closet and saw stacks of round metal film reel cases piled high and tossed about with the names clearly marked: Cape Fear, Taxi Driver, Casino, After Hours, Raging Bull! It was perfect, so we squeezed in a director’s chair and proceeded to light the shot dramatically from overhead with a series of grids and gels. Eight minutes before Scorsese was scheduled to show up the assistant’s boss showed up and started screaming at her for Okaying the setup, saying, “Martin could absolutely not be shot in this closet that he had been trying to get her to clean up for months!” Realizing there was going to be no way to talk my way into it and given that Scorsese was about to show up, I calmly asked the boss if there was any other spot that might work. She said he had a screening room we had overlooked down the hall. Without wasting time to scout it, I had my assistant grab a pack in one hand, and a stand with an attached head and blue gelled grid spot in the other, and follow me down the hall. I had the assistant stand behind the glass in the projection room simulating the projector light and I set my grid light aimed at a chair in the second row just as Mr. Scorsese walked in.”



What is the most challenging situation you’ve ever had to deal with while photographing a celebrity and what did you do to get the shot?

Peter Freed: “When I was setting up to photograph Arnold Schwarzenegger for The New York Times (before he became governor of California) I was promised 45 minutes for the shoot; he showed up early and said I had five minutes. We hadn’t even started to unpack the lights yet! Motioning him over to the side, I proceeded to play the poor working man card, with two kids and child support payments. I told him how important this shoot was to me. We ended up shooting for over an hour, and he later purchased the shot to use as his publicity shot.”

George Holz: “Earlier on, it wasn't uncommon for a celebrity to show up without a publicist. Either they didn't have one, or they didn't want the whole entourage. I remember a particular shoot for People magazine with Angelina Jolie early on in her career.  She came alone, and we got some great shots in addition to what the magazine wanted. One shot in particular of her yielding a large kitchen knife was quite provocative. A good publicist understands the importance of letting their celebrity and the photographer have the freedom to experiment and play.  But then before, there weren't Web sites devoted to this star or that, and there weren't the crazies. Publicists have to protect against that.”

Joseph Cultice: “Revolver wanted me to photograph Ozzie Osborne as Satan for the cover of the magazine. I said why not have a gaggle of naked girls grabbing at him, as if he's in hell? We had to go through [his wife] Sharon [Osborne] to get it approved. During the conference call, all she said was, ‘Make sure they're not skanky rock chicks.’ We said, ‘They're going to be touching him, Sharon, just so you know.’ She said, ‘No, I trust you.’”

Chris Buck: “I photographed Elliott Erwitt a few years ago. I love that he’s a genuinely eccentric person, but taking his photograph was very difficult, especially because he is a photographer too. We did two or three different setups at the house after lunch and then Elliott had to run an errand to take garbage to the dump. I asked to come along and brought just my camera and a couple of rolls of film. Turns out the dump had these big garbage hills with dirt and all sorts of tractor marks on them. I thought they were really cool so I asked Elliott to do a quick pose in front of one of and that’s when I got my shot.”

Patrick Harbron: “I photographed William Shatner at the end of a really long day. At one point I asked him to move over to a certain area on the set and he asked me if I was the director. I answered no and he said “Then why are you directing me?” He eventually told me to just do whatever I had to do . . .until I called him “Jim” as in Jim Kirk, his character from Star Trek. After that my idea of putting Spock ears on him went right out the window. We had very few frames that day but I managed to get off a couple that he liked.”

Michael Grecco: “I had to shoot Steve Martin for TIME right around the time his memoir came out. I thought it would be funny to make it look like he had been in his garden writing his memoir his whole life, so I wanted to have these vines wrapping around him as he sat writing in a kid’s chair. The first hurdle was that he didn’t want us shooting in his garden, so I came up with a budget to build a garden on set. Next I got a call from Steve himself telling me that he hated the idea of using kid’s furniture. And then I had a typewriter in the shot but the photo editor didn’t like that so in the final shot that ran, there is both a typewriter and writing pad in the scene. And the chair we ended up using was an adult-sized one. What I loved about this shoot was how interesting it was to see how one great idea morphed into another, and even though there were hurdles along the way, it all worked out in the end. The final image has won several awards.”

Kwaku Alston: “Certain things were challenging for me personally because of the pressure I put on myself as an image maker. Take for example photographing Barack Obama. I wanted to see this guy succeed for my own personal reasons, and I felt a lot of pressure to make an iconic picture because this could possibly be the next president and I might not get the chance again. I wanted my personal vision expressed and seen. I felt like I was doing something for history.
    “One photo was backlit, because I didn't want to show his race. I wanted to show the power and character and strength of him through his profile and when you bring race into it, you bring everyone's baggage into their reading of the photo. It was a challenge to show the dignity and pride of the man and this kind of JFK spirit, and when you bring race into it, you bring everyone's baggage into their reading of that photo. That was challenging for me because it was about some of the things I had to deal with in my own career.”

Joseph Cultice: “A young pop star was supposed to be on a shoot for a teen magazine. When she was an hour late she called to cancel, saying she was sick. That was an expensive shoot because there was a set, and we had to keep the crew in town for a week [to photograph her]. On the day of the shoot, she wouldn't talk to anyone from the magazine. She brought her own stylist, and she didn’t look right for the magazine. I had a cavalcade of people yelling at me, telling me to hurry up. We got some beautiful photos of her. In one photo you could see tears brimming up in her eyes.
    “Six months later I was at a party, and she saw me. She walked right up to me and apologized for how terrible the photo shoot had been. She said that was a really bad day for her because that day she was trying to decide if she should fire all those people. At the point at which she had started to cry, she was considering firing those people because they were all yelling at us to hurry up. In the end, there were circumstances that we didn't understand.”



What’s the most surprising thing you’ve been able to convince a celebrity to do for a photo?

Emily Shur: “A shoot I did with Alan Arkin [for Esquire], we modeled it after the Peanuts advice booth with Lucy. We built this wooden advice booth and [Arkin] was there looking depressed and lonely because no one wanted his advice. You never know if the person is going to get it or not. He really liked it and got into it.
    “We recently shot Kaitlin Olson as a disheveled prom queen drinking beer. When things really work it’s not so much what I’m doing, it’s that the subject and I have a similar sense of sarcasm or sense of humor and we get each other enough to where I can just give them the general outline of the shot and they can just do their thing and you can do your thing.”

Sarah A. Friedman: “One of my favorites was getting [basketball star] Tracy McGrady  
in a bubble bath. I did my other shots and then had to ask, as we had a good rapport.  I said, 'Tracy, can I do a shot of you in the tub?' and he said, 'Do you want bubbles?' It was great!

Peter Freed: “I was sent to photograph Randy Quaid and his wife for Premiere magazine at his apartment in Midtown. He met me at the door and started cracking jokes right away. When he asked me how I wanted to photograph them, I took advantage of his good mood and suggested we re-enact the [Annie Leibovitz] John Lennon and Yoko shot and pose him nude on the floor wrapped around his wife. Without a pause he replied 'Sure,' and walked out of the room to get prepared. I quickly sent my assistant down to the Barnes & Noble to buy the Leibovitz book in order to get the pose right.”

See Part Three of our Inside The Celebrity Portrait feature later this week on PDNOnline. Part One appeared in the December print issue of PDN.