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Jun 12th 2008 10:37AM
An interview with Matt Sayles- Posted by: Rachel Been
- Tags: Interview
Sidney Poitier (Matt Sayles, AP)
Matt Sayles is one of the top entertainment shooters in LA. He works exclusively with the Associated Press, and has covered everything from Super Bowls to the Oscars. I interviewed Matt about his stellar career as a respected Hollywood photographer. A portfolio of his work is available here.
---So, run through a week for an AP entertainment shooter -- what are you mostly shooting, how often, when?
It really varies from week to week but a typical week includes a mix of concerts, portraits, premieres, and awards shows/parties.
---During some of your high profile portraits what were some of the major issues/surprises you faced?
The major issues are always time and location. I am usually given a small hotel room to shoot in and have a time limit of 10 mins, which really means 4-5 mins. So it can be really challenging to make great pictures in that circumstance. Every once in a while you walk into a hotel room that looks like a beautiful set.There are rarely surprises when circumstances are miraculously perfect, but given proper planning and execution you can overcome difficult shoots. The best true surprises usually come from a subject who is really energetic and ready to make great pictures.
---What are some of the coolest moments you have experienced during event photography?
There are so many moments. Sometimes when I'm covering an event I look around and can't believe that I'm actually there. The first time I walked down the red carpet at the Oscars I couldn't help but be humbled be the experience. I have just had so many opportunities to meet people and talk with people that I admire. I was shooting backstage at the Palm Springs International Film Festival where I met Joe Wright, the director of Atonement (one of my favorite movies of all time), and we had a great conversation about the film and how they achieved the famous uncut steadicam shot. Its moments like this that make my job special.
---Have you ever been hassled by a celebrity?
---Do you have a certain lighting technique that you really love to use?
I love natural light so I use it whenever I can. I really enjoy keeping it simple and using backlight or open shade to make a clean, classic portrait.
On more than a few occasions but I just chalk them up as par for the course. Celebrities are just like regular people and they have good moods and bad moods just like everyone else. They are rarely intentionally difficult . Sometimes they are just tired of having a camera in their face. When I sense a circumstance where a celebrity is/may get up upset, I usually just walk the other direction.
---Do you have a certain lighting technique that you really love to use?
I love natural light so I use it whenever I can. I really enjoy keeping it simple and using backlight or open shade to make a clean, classic portrait.
--- Is there any piece of gear, lens, lighting, etc, that you couldn't live without?
In regards to camera equipment not really. When you shoot in so many difficult circumstances you learn to use be very flexible. I love my Canon 24-70 but I could and have lived without it. On the other hand I cant imagine living without my Blackberry and my 24inch iMac.
In regards to camera equipment not really. When you shoot in so many difficult circumstances you learn to use be very flexible. I love my Canon 24-70 but I could and have lived without it. On the other hand I cant imagine living without my Blackberry and my 24inch iMac.
---For younger photographers trying to shoot celebrities, can you offer a word of advice?
Be respectful, easy to work with, and friendly. You need to make great pictures but how you carry and present yourself is equally important. A celebrity photographer is businessman, photographer, and brand.
Be respectful, easy to work with, and friendly. You need to make great pictures but how you carry and present yourself is equally important. A celebrity photographer is businessman, photographer, and brand.
Jun 2nd 2008 10:02AM
Interview with Lucy Nicholson- Posted by: Rachel Been
- Tags: Interview
I interviewed Lucy Nicholson, Reuters photographer extraordinaire and recent attendee of the first MediaStorm workshop in NYC, about her experience at the workshop and multimedia in general.
--- What was a basic workshop day like?
Hmmm, a basic workshop day... for our team it was wake up late-ish, enjoy NY coffee shop, work all day, eat pizza, work all evening, find a good restaurant & rush there for dinner before they close, get to sleep around midnight - 2 am, repeat the next day... If we were still working when all the restaurants closed at night, it would be my job to sprint to the wine store to buy a good bottle to have with our takeout pizza...
The MediaStorm Advanced Multimedia Reporting Workshop was really focused. The first few mornings we had very concise lectures on the essentials of video, audio, photography for multimedia packages and Final Cut Pro, and then went straight into the field as a team to apply the techniques. There were only 4 people on the course learning (2 photogs & 2 editors) and 5 people teaching. The time on the course was superbly budgeted - classroom learning was kept to a minimum; it was all about learning-by-doing supplemented by notes you could read in more detail at a later point.
---What was it like making the switch from just shooting stills to working with audio and video?
Journalism is journalism. I started as a print reporter & interviewing is not alien to me. I've always loved movies, documentaries & cinematography, so that's another exciting aspect to bring to web multimedia journalism.
The hard part is suddenly learning a lot of new equipment and having to make choices on the fly which are far from instinctive yet. I also am finding it hard to visualize the edit, and shoot what I need for it, when I haven't done that much Final Cut Pro editing.
It seems to work way better when you plan, decide whether you're going to do audio, video or photos for a specific interview or shot and then just concentrate on that one thing. The 2 most obvious mistakes I kept making in the beginning were: (a) not using a tripod with video, and (b) not asking questions which required the interviewee to respond with a full sentence in audio interviews.
Practice is everything. It's the same as when we all first picked up a still camera.
---How did you develop the narrative for your piece? How did you originally think of the concept of the piece?
Reuters wanted us to make the piece in a place in New York which was recognizable internationally; somewhere like Times Square or the New York stock exchange. So we made Times Square our location, read about the history, and then went out to talk to people there in an effort to find a story we could focus on.
---What was it like working with a multimedia producer versus a photo editor? Was the collaboration vastly different/similar?
On the MediaStorm course, I worked with editor Jassim Ahmad, Reuters' Head of Visual Projects in London, and MediaStorm producer Bob Sacha. Both were awesome to work with - full of ideas and very encouraging and collaborative. Bob was teaching us as well as being our producer. He put in as much time as we needed & stayed working with us at night till we all couldn't stay awake, which is probably not a typical working relationship!
I think MediaStorm is creating some of the best multimedia out there, so just picking up their way of doing things was valuable in itself. There's no correct formula with mixing audio, stills & video for the web, so it's good to have people who really know what they're doing give you a formula to start with. The course gave me a lot of confidence - I have a lot to learn, but at least I feel like I'm going in the right direction.
Learning audio & video is making me think of photography in a whole new way. It helps clarify why & when a still photo has more power.
---How did you develop the narrative for your piece? How did you originally think of the concept of the piece?
Reuters wanted us to make the piece in a place in New York which was recognizable internationally; somewhere like Times Square or the New York stock exchange. So we made Times Square our location, read about the history, and then went out to talk to people there in an effort to find a story we could focus on.
Originally the concept was that we would see Times Square through the eyes of some of the regulars - a hot dog vendor who had been there for decades, a cop, the Naked Cowboy, an immigrant pedi-cab driver etc. But once we started interviewing & filming all these people (& then transcribing the interviews), we realized we weren't able to spend enough time to do any one of them in depth. And that it would be complex to weave their stories into our Times Square location visually.
When we met the Naked Cowboy and he invited us to his home in New Jersey and we then happened upon his girlfriend, who was able to talk about another side to him, we realized it would make more sense to just concentrate on him, as an icon of Times Square, and have him as the prism through which our viewers would see the place.
---What was it like working with a multimedia producer versus a photo editor? Was the collaboration vastly different/similar?
On the MediaStorm course, I worked with editor Jassim Ahmad, Reuters' Head of Visual Projects in London, and MediaStorm producer Bob Sacha. Both were awesome to work with - full of ideas and very encouraging and collaborative. Bob was teaching us as well as being our producer. He put in as much time as we needed & stayed working with us at night till we all couldn't stay awake, which is probably not a typical working relationship!
Jassim and Bob helped shoot and gather audio, and I helped transcribe and edit - there was a lot of overlap. That's perhaps the difference with multimedia projects - it's a complete collaboration or it doesn't work. I needed to keep going back to them to ask what the story was becoming & what was missing, so I could go look for those pieces out in the field.
In my daily wire service work, deadlines are such that there is not much time for feedback. We go out & take the photos, and at bigger events where we have editors, the editors edit without our comments. Maybe they'll tell us we did a nice job or ask for what they think is a missing shot. But less collaboration than with multimedia.
That said, when you're working with a good photo editor/multimedia producer, the feeling is the same - you know the end result will be greater than what you are personally contributing, which is a cool feeling...
---What were some of the most important things the workshop taught you?
---What were some of the most important things the workshop taught you?
I think MediaStorm is creating some of the best multimedia out there, so just picking up their way of doing things was valuable in itself. There's no correct formula with mixing audio, stills & video for the web, so it's good to have people who really know what they're doing give you a formula to start with. The course gave me a lot of confidence - I have a lot to learn, but at least I feel like I'm going in the right direction.
May 29th 2008 10:41PM
Corbis, Maysles and My Lucky Ticket- Posted by: Rachel Been
Corbis, one of the top editorial and photographic agencies in the world, hosted an event honoring a collaboration with Albert Maysles. Maysles, the director behind What's Happening? The Beatles in the USA, Grey Gardens, and cult classic Gimme Shelter with the Rolling Stones, defined what we know as documentary film-making.
After the deliciousness of duck buns and white wine, Maysles screened some never-seen footage from Salesman, Grey Gardens, and his new autobiographical film. Albert's preambles to the clips were quaint novellas; he described his projects with eloquent grace and candor fifty years after their production.
"The most pivotal moment in my life?" rhetorically answered Maysles to an audience member's question, "was after the first screening of Salesman. Everyone had left the theater except for one person who had stayed behind. She walked up to my brother and I after everyone had gone, and I could see that she was crying and was also absolutely beautiful. I told my brother 'this one is for me!' and that's how I met my wife." The incorporation of a deeply personal story with his public work is indicative of his career-- he wasn't producing disjointed work, he was extending a narrative based on his world conception.
And then I won the poster!
I rarely prance and I NEVER win lotteries and I NEVER hug famous filmmakers and I NEVER acquire amazing original posters from the mid-70's containing a deranged woman the size of my torso. I gladly accepted the poster of Grey Gardens, (Maysles pivotal film about Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edie, the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) and pranced. I spent my sweet 15 minutes with duck buns and extreme talent, and walked out with big green and a date with the video store.
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