Having to Deal with Publicists

Taking pictures of celebrities can be a rush job. Most of the time they really don’t care and generally try to accommodate the photographers needs, but it’s their publicists who actually control their clients time and this can be frustrating.

It actually took me longer to find a parking space near the W Hotel in downtown Seattle than it did to set up four of my 550 EX Speedlites, and take a couple of tests shots than it took for me to get some pictures of Carson Kressley, the flamboyant star of TV's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", in the lobby. Kressley, who was in town promoting his fashion book of tips for the straight men, "Off the Cuff”, was really great to work with, but his publicists was not.

I’m not trying to say that this individual was hard to work with, but, having him constantly look over my shoulder, wanting to view each captured image was gate keeping at it best and cutting into my allotted shooting time.  Finally, after seeing my frustration, Carson suggested to his publicists, the shooting session would pass quicker if he’d look at the images after they were all taken instead of one at a time.

 Kressley was great to work with, having model underwear for many years, he was natural in front of the camera and didn’t require any guidance in posing at all and I able to squeeze about 30 pictures off in the 30 minutes photo session before the publicists called it a wrap.