Visit our new website:
www.briansmith.com

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 for The Creative Coalition’s book “Art & Soul” which features portraits of celebrities alongside their hand-written thoughts about the importance of the arts. Through the sponsorship of Sony, Hachette Filipacchi and American PHOTO magazine, 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.

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

Leah Tepper-Byrne – ICP
Theresa Juarez – Academy of Art University, SF
ValJean Anderson – Academy of Art University, SF
Eliot Crowley – Academy of Art University, SF
Ross Feighery – Columbia College, Chicago
Samuel James – Tufts University
Joseph Escamilla – Pasadena Art Center College of Design

Each winner will receive a $1000 cash prize, ThinkTank Urban Disguise 30 camera bag, Blinkbid Software, one year Livebooks:Edu subscription, one year PhotoShelter standard account, and other prizes.

The winners were selected by members of the EP Board of Directors and Special Guest Judges:

Laurie Kratochvil, former Director of Photography at Rolling Stone and InStyle
Rob Haggart, of aphotoeditor.com, former Director of Photography at Men’s Journal and Outside
Ronnie Weil, Director of Photography at Business Week
Robert Mansfield, Art Director at Forbes

EP wishes to congratulate or winners and thank our lovely judges!
—
Editorial Photographers [EP] is a non-profit, mutual benefit organization of working and emerging photographers, educators, and students who participate in the field of editorial photography. EP’s mission is to raise awareness of proper business practices among photographers, and to advocate for contracts and terms that allow both creators and users of editorial photography to profit and prosper. To apply for membership in EP, please visit http://www.editorialphoto.com/register

Does this look fun?

Fame is a funny thing. A lot of notions about fame and celebrity are based on which side of the velvet rope you find yourself.

There’s a great scene in Barry Levinson’s “PoliWood” where two actors shoot down any notion that Hollywood celebrities are motivated by the desire for photo ops.

Sure, it’s a necessary part of the business. Red carpet photo ops are one of the ways motion picture studios promote their latest releases. Just those 4-color flyers for your local hardware store.

But fun? I don’t think so…

Imagine running a gauntlet of this on your way into the movies.

Actually, to quite honest, the photographer who blasted me with his flash was extremely nice and quite personable. We ended up having a drink together. We were at a party, after all. If he seems more dapper than you’d imagine for a paparazzi, there’s a good reason for that. It’s actually actor Tim Daly giving me my 1/15 second of fame…

A total of seven prize packages are available to full time photography students who enter and submit their portfolio by the deadline.  Each package includes a $1000 cash prize, a ThinkTank Urban Disguise 30 camera bag, Blinkbid Software, a one year subscription to Livebooks:Edu, a one year Standard Account at PhotoShelter, and other prizes.

EP is also pleased to announce that our guest judges for the 2009 Grants include Laurie Kratochvil, former Director of Photography at Rolling Stone and InStyle, aphotoeditor.com Rob Haggart, former Director of Photography at Men’s Journal and Outside, Robert Mansfield, Art Director of Forbes and Ronnie Weil, Director of Photography of Business Week.

Get the full details here: http://www.editorialphoto.com/epedu and please feel free to forward this message to any full time student who may be eligible, or to teachers and staff of eligible photography programs. Good luck to all the entrants!
—
Editorial Photographers [EP] is a non-profit, mutual benefit organization of working and emerging photographers, educators, and students who participate in the field of editorial photography.  EP’s mission is to raise awareness of proper business practices among photographers, and to advocate for contracts and terms that allow both creators and users of editorial photography to profit and prosper.  To apply for membership in EP, please visit http://www.editorialphoto.com/register .

One of my Miami Beach neighbors was called for jury duty and during the jury selection interviews, he mentions he’s a writer.

One of the attorneys asks him, “So you’re a writer, huh? Have you ever written anything we might have read.”

So he answers, “My name is Thomas Harris and I wrote ‘Silence of the Lambs’…”

Needless to say, he was excused from jury duty…

Covering Hideki is really quite a scene. Hideki is Japanese Elvis. There are more photographers following Hideki than covering the rest of the Yankees combined. Fortunately, they are all very, very well behaved.

For this shoot of Japanese baseball players in the U.S., I used a Sony a700. Sony was in developing their full-frame Sony a900 they were looking for feedback from professional photographers. I was sent a Sony a700 and told to take it out and give it a beating to see how it held up under the conditions pros really use their gear. So I decided to give it a trial under fire by using it on a few jobs.

I was set-up for environmental portrait of Hideki in the Yankees Spring Training stadium, Legends’ Field in Tampa when the Yankees PR came up to say Hideki was doing the interview now and we might not get him later.

Rather than tearing down the lights from our big set-up and dragging everything across the stadium, I simply grabbed the Sony Alpha 700 and the Zeiss 85/1.4 and Zeiss 135/1.8 lenses. This series was shot in open shade under the stadium with the 135mm wide open at 1.8 at 1/60 handheld at ASA 100 using the camera’s built-in image stabilization to keep every shot razor sharp.

I like these Zeiss lenses a LOT. The Zeiss glass reminds me of the medium format lenses that I’ve used for years. Sony definitely has the right idea. It’s ALL about the glass. The Zeiss 16-35mm/2.8, Zeiss 24-70mm/2.8, Zeiss 85/1.4 and Zeiss 135/1.8 are all razor sharp, but what’s hard to quantify is that not only are they sharp, but they have a great “look” that I’ve only seen from medium format glass.

The good news is that we eventually got the environmental portrait of Hideki that we were after, so the tight portraits were a nice bonus and when it comes to magazine photography, there’s no such thing as having too many options.

At this year’s PMA in Las Vegas I found out that Phil Lubell of Sony is a huge Yankees fan, so Mark Weir and I hooked Phil up with a 36″x54″ print of this photo for his office. If you can make a razor sharp 36″x54″print from a 12.2 mp Sony a700, you can imagine how great the prints look from the 24.6 mp Sony a900.

Here the trick to making really big prints:

First – Always shoot RAW if possible – the more information there is in your file the better.

Second – The best time to uprez is in RAW processing, so try to do it at that stage if possible.

Third - Choose an appropriate print resolution for the print size. Epson printers can interpolate from any print resolution, but they have sweet spots at 180, 240, 360 and 480 dpi. So for a relatively small print I’ll print at 480 dpi, but for a large print like this, I’ll use 180 dpi to minimize the need to uprez.

Now go out and do something Big!

Yet I certainly agree that blogs are a great way to get your name out there. Thanks for the blog love, dude!