Photographers Blog

By Mario Anzuoni

I was invited to Sony studios to shoot a portrait of actor David Spade during a lunch break from the taping of his television series “Rules of Engagement”.

I anticipated this would be quite a quick opportunity, after being told to be ready promptly at 2 pm to catch David before his lunch. Once there I was told I would be able to set up in their green room, an office type of room (not the most exciting setting for a portrait). As my allotted time approached I kept thinking that it would have been ideal if I would have been able to photograph him on the actual set, placing him into the context of the tv series. As I watched from the sidelines, right before the break, I was introduced to the stage manager.

I couldn’t waste any time in emphasizing how much more relevant it would be to portray him on set rather than in a simple room. It was doable! But we still had to seek approval of the Union crew to keep the lights on for a couple of extra minutes. Thankfully everyone agreed and I was able to photograph David in the two iconic settings — his office and the diner — stealing only about 2 minutes and 30 seconds from his lunch break. Needless to say he was very pleased and said “finally someone who’s quick!”
Lights out.

By Fred Prouser

In recent days, there has been a spate of celebrity deaths – with each story about the celebrity’s life accompanied by a photograph I took in the past. From Andy Griffiths, producer Richard Zanuck, Sylvester Stallone’s son Sage to Oscar winning actress Celeste Holm, their lives were summed up in a single photograph.

Most often the death is unexpected, so preparations made well in advance of the persons demise come in to play. Aside from a good headshot from a premiere or other event, acquisition of stills from the person’s movie career are a must. It then becomes a mission of online research to locate an appropriate photograph, which could be from the publicist, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, various Halls of Fame or sometimes reaching out to the celebrity’s fan club for that elusive photograph, to get the photo as quickly as possible to go with the story.

Since I began shooting entertainment for Reuters in 1992 in Hollywood, I was able to cover the tail end of the Golden Age of Hollywood stars, including Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Cyd Charisse. I felt it an honor to have captured the spirit and essence of these stars and at times have my photograph used with their obituary story. Of the thousands of images shot during a long career, to capture the quintessential smile, glance or scowl – and have it be the image to sum up a life – that’s the job of the humble obituary photograph.

By Henry Romero

The security fence surrounding the hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Polanco, Mexico, where Justin Bieber was scheduled to give a news conference, was impressive. It was far away from the main entrance of the hotel – far enough away to make sure that the throngs of frenzied girls would not be able to trample their object of lust to death. Girls still dressed in their school uniform endured the sun for hours, screaming or singing his songs together, without knowing each other but bonding through their love for him.

When we, the photographers and journalists, were walking past to get into position for the news conference, the girls begged to come along with us “Sir, let me carry your equipment; don’t you need an assistant?; Pleeeease, I love him sooo much, please, take me with you…….” while they hugged the fence and held pictures of Justin pressed to their hearts.

One of them was holding onto a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Justin like it was the real thing; Justin – the cardboard lover.

By Suzanne Plunkett

On the outside, Angels The Costumiers is a drab grey warehouse bordered on one side by an industrial estate and on another by an artery of railway lines ferrying weary commuters to the endless suburbs of northwest London. Inside, it’s pure Hollywood.

As the world’s largest supplier of outfits to cinema, stage and television, Angels is home to more than eight miles of clothing rails — a vast and dizzying maze in which it’s simultaneously possible to lose yourself and stumble upon a piece of movie history.

SLIDESHOW: COSTUMES OF THE STARS

“This here is our £60,000-pound rail,” says Jeremy Angel, a creative manager at the costumier, gesturing to a rack on which hangs hundreds of drab-looking ecclesiastical garments. “It’s where we found the Obi-Wan Kenobi robe.”

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 Jim Urquhart

Courtesy of Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune

I am not a star stalker nor am I a paparazzi. I am just a screaming photojournalist and the Angry Birds Champion of the World!

I was recently given the opportunity to work with Reuters’ photojournalists Lucas Jackson and Mario Anzuoni as part of the photo team covering the Sundance Film Festival. This was my second year covering the event, which is more like a triathlon in terms of photo work. The days can be long, you have to use different photographic skill sets and there’s a bit of competition for pictures.

It is the one assignment a year like it for me. I mainly cover breaking news, features and sports. I know nothing about celebrity or entertainment news. But for some reason this doesn’t deter the editors from throwing me in to it. Luckily Mario and Lucas know what they are doing.

I’ve covered all of the big Los Angeles based award shows and multiple Grammy Award shows, but I’ve never seen something like this. Was Babylon 5 making a comeback? Nope – just Gaga being Gaga.

I started to set up my equipment at my assigned spot on the 53rd annual Grammy Awards red carpet around 10:15am. My assignment was to cover red carpet arrivals with Lucy Nicholson photographing the show and Mario Anzuoni backstage photographing winners with their awards. Arrivals began at 12pm and lasted until 5pm. At about 10:45am we had a visit from an organizer saying that 1pm would be a bad time for a bathroom break. We started to ask questions and the answers were vague such as variations of “believe me you will want to be here, trust me.” We began to deduct through cryptic messages that it was regarding Lady Gaga’s arrival as that was everyone’s best guess and it made sense after covering her in the past.

As more photographers started to show up, the word circulated about the 1pm slot and we were told that the red carpet would be cleared for “something”. Words with question marks floating around included a vessel, a cocoon, a carriage, an enclosure. Eventually the cryptic Lady Gaga talk ceased and all of us photographers were told that her enclosure would stop in the center of the backdrop, she would be inside and she would not come out of it to pose for photos. Would we even be able to see her? What is it? How large is it? We weren’t sure. Photographers were trying to come up with ideas of what was possible. Would she walk with a transparent cage around her? Would she be encased in a glass dome? Was it something attached to her? People were asking everyone to try to gather a clue on what to expect. For some reason I started to envision her inside a huge hamster ball or some sort of plastic balloon like how some gift basket companies package stuffed animal gifts.