I was given 15 minutes with David Byrne. The former Talking Heads frontman was backstage at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley before a show on his Who Is The Sky? tour, and the Los Angeles Times sent me to make portraits for its feature by pop music critic Mikael Wood. Read the story on the LA Times.
Fifteen minutes is its own kind of brief. You walk in with a plan, light it fast, and if things are moving, you leave room for exactly one experiment. Mine was the frame above: an in-camera triple exposure, one straight look and two lit profiles, red and blue, built in the camera rather than in Photoshop. Would I have pushed further creatively with an hour? Absolutely. But constraints have a way of sharpening choices.
Byrne himself made it easy. Super nice guy in person, game for direction, and genuinely fun to work with. At one point he picked up my camera and started shooting back.
Tight windows are the job
Backstage celebrity portraits and executive portraits have more in common than people think. In both cases the subject is busy, the clock is running, and the photographs still have to carry a story. The same playbook that produced these frames, scouting fast, pre-lighting, and directing efficiently, is what I bring to executive portrait sessions and corporate headshot days: if your CEO has 15 minutes between meetings, that is enough time to make something worth using.
More of my editorial work for AFP, Getty Images, and the LA Times is on the press page. Reach out if your team needs portraits that look like more than 15 minutes went into them.