I was assigned to cover the 11th season finale of “American Idol” at the Nokia theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The show culminates after months of nationwide eliminations and crowns a new winner in a two-hour televised show.

The show features the last two finalists and generally an array of high profile music performances. Our shooting position was next to the teleprompter, so my setup was a Canon Mark IV with 400mm, 5D Mark II with a 70-200 and another Mark IV with either a 300mm or a 16-35.

Seasoned show host Ryan Seacrest got the finale off the ground, accompanied by a joyful and supportive crowd that quickly filled up the theater and cheered for an opening duet by the two finalists. The show definitely kicked into a higher gear with a laser-enhanced performance by Rihanna and an energetic performance by American Idol judge Jennifer Lopez.

The evening passed through performances by music icons like John Fogerty, Neil Diamond and Chaka Khan while the top male finalists honored the memory of Bee Gees founder Robin Gibb, who had just passed away.

By Mario Anzuoni

I was assigned to cover the unveiling ceremony of a star on the Walk of Fame for actress Scarlett Johansson. The Walk of Fame, which stretches for more than a mile, has become one of the backbones for Hollywood tourism. Hundreds of brass stars are embedded on the Hollywood Blvd sidewalks to celebrate people who distinguished themselves in the world of entertainment.

The unveiling generally offers a good photo opportunity, in this case, besides a high caliber name like Johansson, the location was in the epicenter of Hollywood, a few steps from the Chinese theater and right in front of Madame Tussauds wax museum. With that in mind I decided to step up my traditional front and center coverage and set up a remote camera from the side since I wanted to immortalize Scarlett in the full Hollywood atmosphere.

By Mario Anzuoni

I met Kelly Edwards on a street corner. He was not the average person you see at traffic lights; he was nicely dressed, freshly shaven with a professional demeanor, holding a sign that stated he was looking for work. I handed him my business card and kindly asked him to get in touch with me.

Given the job situation and the U.S. economy struggling to create new jobs, I was interested in knowing more. Two days later Kelly called. We spent an hour on the phone where he started to tell me his story. At that point I asked if I could spend a day with him to show an average day of job seeking; he agreed. About a week later, I arrived at Kelly’s home in West Covina where he greeted me with freshly brewed coffee.

Kelly Edwards is 54 years old, and has been unemployed since 2008. He put three kids through college and now lives with his wife Lynne and their 13-year-old son Kal-El. He has been a full time and part time employee, but never without a job. With two decades of experience in the food and beverage industry Kelly thought it would be a good idea to move from Portland to Los Angeles four years ago, but he is still without a full time position with the exception of a few handyman jobs.

By Mario Anzuoni

The Golden Gods awards is a celebration of the most influential heavy metal and hard rock bands, sponsored by the industry magazine Revolver. This year, for the first time in the award’s four year history, the 2-hour show, featuring multiple headbanging performances in an extremely loud concert-like atmosphere, would be televised live on the xbox network. And if that wasn’t enough to make the night interesting, I was informed before the show that a very special guest was going to be a part of the finale this year.

The show kicked off with a performance by Motley Crue co-founder Nikki Sixx, followed by Gene Simmons of KISS receiving a special Golden God award for his career achievements. The show just got louder from there, with performances by the Hollywood-based band Black Veil Brides and Dee Snider, then Slash performing with Alice Cooper. Then came Evanescence followed by Tenacious D duo Jack Black and Kyle Gass presenting Rush drummer Neil Peart with a Lifetime Achievement award.

The crowd was pleased, but after almost two hours, the audience was both impatient and excited to see Marilyn Manson’s finale performance.

By Mario Anzuoni

This year, as in the past, I was assigned to shoot the show portion of the annual Kids Choice awards. The show caters to an audience of children and teenagers and most importantly all the awards are voted on by the kids. The main star of the show is always the green slime – which the kids and some of the celebrities get plenty of.

A few days ahead of the show there was an announcement that the First Lady of the U.S. was going to attend the show with daughters Sasha and Malia to present The Big Help Award to singer Taylor Swift.

Naturally this year security was stepped up due to the attendance of the First Lady, so I had to be at the venue a few hours in advance to clear Secret Service. We were informed that Michelle Obama would arrive about 15 minutes before the show and we would have a few minutes to photograph her in her seat. Despite being a hectic and quick photo opportunity surrounded by thousands of screaming kids, I managed to get a few spontaneous frames of the First Lady interacting with some kids in the audience.

By Mario Anzuoni

This year I was assigned for the first time to cover the show portion of the Grammy awards. I felt privileged to have the opportunity to photograph the most respected music award show in the world. The week preceding the award show (dubbed Grammy week in the entertainment business) builds up the hype with pre-Grammy events and gala nights, including this year’s MusiCares Person of the Year to Paul McCartney and the Clive Davis dinner party. The best of the music industry is in Los Angeles.

Two days prior to the show were filled with rehearsals at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. On Saturday, I was ready to watch a rehearsal when the news broke of Whitney Houston’s death, 24 hours before the Grammy Awards. I immediately started wondering what kind of tribute the Grammy could put together with 24 hours notice to honor the loss of such a high-caliber artist. I realized that no matter what, the 54th Grammy Awards was going to be about the loss of Whitney Houston and in fact, a few hours later news came out that Jennifer Hudson was going to sing during a tribute to Houston.

With that in mind, I decided to approach this 3.5 hour show just like all the other ones I have shot, with the only difference being that we were given two seats in the audience at either stage right or left. This meant using a monopod rather than a tripod. Another challenge was that our seats were on floor level, so whenever the audience would stand up (which is more often than seldom) I had to stand up and re-adjust with a 400mm lens. I had a Canon Mark IV with a 400mm lens on a monopod, a Mark IV with a 70-200mm lens and a 5D Mark II with a 16-35mm lens.

Reuters had been approved for a ten-minute portrait session with Taylor Lautner, the heartthrob of millions of teenagers, my editor Sam Mircovich informed me the day before the shoot.

Reporter Alex Dobuzinskis had a one-on-one interview with Taylor scheduled ahead of the premier of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” Before the release of a film, the production company organizes press junkets in which the cast is available for media interviews and occasionally for a quick photo session. Photo access is rare so whenever it’s granted to us, it’s welcomed.

Not unlike other press junkets, this one was held at a prestigious hotel in Los Angeles. The hotel had been rigged and retrofitted for these types of media events.

My shoot was slotted in for 3:15pm on a Saturday. I arrived one hour early, as I always do, to check in, set-up and think about my shots.

Two important things to remember during these portrait sessions are: to create an environmental portrait with no backdrop, and to create a unique look that extracts the subject from the actual hotel setting. I always aim for these two different looks.

To shoot a traditional portrait, I use a medium size Chimera softbox, a Dynalite uni400 head plugged into a jackrabbit battery and a wireless connection with pocket wizards transmitters as I prefer not to have any cables running along the floor. I am able to move around the room freely with my lighting self-contained.