Another very quick portrait session for the Wall Street Journal
This time, Lee Child, the man behind the 18 Jack Reacher novels, who will be hosting the WSJ book club for the next few weeks.
Attorney Paul Dans was instrumental in revealing the fraud surrounding the Chevron Ecuador lawsuit which was later called “the world greatest litigation fraud”.
We met for a last minute shoot, on a steamy July afternoon at the NY bar association, which is a beautiful place, with a beautiful library, that you won’t see since both Paul’s force of persuasion and my french charm failed miserably to convince the cerberus woman at the entrance to let us shoot in it…
You can’t always win.
If you want to know more, American lawyer’s senior international correspondent Michael Goldhaber released an ebook titled ” Crude Awakening” that reads like a John Grisham’s novel.
It’s available here and highly recommended by yours truly.
Fun fact/ Paul and I attended the same french law university Paris-2 Pantheon-Assas. He obviously did much better.
“You got the wrong guy. I’m the Dude, man.”
Exactly a week ago, I was at Studio 225 in Chelsea, living the best 20 minutes of my professional life.
The previous friday, Ronnie Weil at WSJ, who instantly made it from my top 10 to my top 5 people, ousting both Oprah and my mum, had asked me to photograph ”His Dudeness … Duder … or El Duderino, if, you know… You’re not into the whole brevity thing.” Mr Jeff Bridges!
The shoot went really fast, it’s all a bit blurry in my head. Luckily, The Wall Street Journal posted a cool behind-the-scene on their photoblog. The article by the unstoppable Alexandra Wolfe is here.
UPDATE: I answer a few questions about the shoot on my excellent friend Joao Carlos’ blog, check it out here!
I even talk a little bit about technique which is extremely rare
I worked on my birthday this year.
On August 1st, a very sweaty me set up a small studio at Billboard’s office for a 10 minutes (litterally!) shoot with DJ Mustard, who’s officially, at age 24, the most bankable beatmaker of 2014.
So bankable in fact, that he released his first album for free here.
Fun fact: He goes by Mustard cuz his first name is Dijon. So Francais!
Fun fact 2: The lovely Amelia from Billboard bought me a birthday cake and she knows how to strike a hip-hop pose.
Did you ever meet a prodigy?
I did.
Matt Aucoin wrote his first symphony when he was 4, conducted an orchestra at age 8, wrote an opera at 11, studied poetry at Harvard along the way.
Now 24,he is the youngest assistant conductor of the Met ever and The Wall Street Journal wonders if he might be the next Leonard Bernstein.
Therefore, 2 weeks ago, He met me…
The shoot was to happen at the Cornelia Street Cafe. It has a little stage with a piano in the basement but it was very narrow and dark. We decided to take a walk and ended up checking out records at nearby NY’s institution House of Oldies Rare Records on Carmine street.
Thanks to the lovely Tara Howard for offering me my second Arena section cover!
Fresh off the camera,my 2 favs from today.
To me, Mr Farid will remain the man who offered me my first smoothie, his favorite flavor, Banana-strawberries; and the CEO who came to the shoot without a PR person and left me a full hour without once looking at his watch.
And THAT was refreshing!!!
A few weeks ago, Ericka Burchett at The wall Street Journal sent me to portray songwriter Gabriel Kahane at home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
I was told specifically to include Gab’s piano in the shot, but It was a lovely afternoon and his street was really cute, so during the interview and while the infamous Ryan was setting up inside, I went to tour the block.
And there! Right around the corner!!!
Providence had placed an abandoned piano like it was waiting for a photo-shoot!
Et Voila.
Read the article here.
Gabriel’s music room was lovely though.
Ray is Bushwick’s Master printer, check him out here
