Bassem Youssef has quite a biography - from heart surgeon to being the ‘Jon Stewart of Egypt’, hosting a satirical show “Al Bernameg”, and subsequently pissing off both the Muslim Brotherhood and the military regime to the point that he had to stop for his own safety.

He talked to the always delightful Alexandra Wolfe for WSJ’s Week end confidential portrait.
You should definitely read her piece here.

The Journal used the shots above, but I will keep this more contrasted option.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a moment with tech’s most well-dressed “enfants terribles” Rameet Chawla & Ryan Matzner, the minds behind Fueled. Read Adweek’s profile here

Laurence Fink founded Blackrock in 1988, his company employs 10.000 people, has $3.5 trillion under management and his annual salary is equivalent to the GPD of Bangladesh.

Therefore, last Thursday, from 4.17PM to 4.20PM, he met me.

You can read the excellent profile by Alexandra Wolfe here.
Fun fact: All numbers above are accurate.

A couple of month ago, Leslie Dela Vega asked me, almost as a favor, if I could stop-by Rolling Stone’s offices, for literally 5 minutes, as she had managed to coerce legendary senior editor David Fricke, a notoriously reluctant subject, into posing for a new contributor photo.

It ended up being pretty cool.

Last december, American Way magazine sent me on a mission to portray Michael Davies and Roger Bennett, aka the Men in Blazers.
Props included 6-packs of Guinness and a soccer ball, chaos ensued…

I wish to express my gratefulness again to the two interns who had to clean beer off the ceiling, and to the Men in Blazers for not making us pay for the dry-cleaning, the carpet and the two broken lamps.

You can check the issue online here, or by booking an American Airlines ticket going somewhere cool.
Where they serve colorful cocktails with those funny paper parasols.

Robert Stone passed away saturday in Florida.

I have a very fond memory of a morning spent with him and his wife/muse Janice, in their tiny book-filled Upper-East side apartment, on assignment for The Wall Street Journal.

The journal used another photo for their article today and re-posted the piece from 2013.

Greetings from the south of France!

Christmas came early this year!
Just a few days before I left, the amazing Ronnie Weil at The Wall Street Journal, who will get showered under french treats upon my returnal, sent me to photograph Christoph Waltz at a midtown hotel.

Although he had spent the day doing those god-awful press junkets, Mr Waltz accepted all my fantasies with extreme patience and kindness.

Read the piece by Alexandra Wolfe here

Fun fact: Ronnie showed up and pretented to shoot behind-the-scene photos, but she was really there because she has a massive crush on Mr Waltz.

Read the article by Alexandra Wolfe here

Grooming by the lovely Nickee David.

Last september, I was sent to shoot fellow portrait photographer Tina Barney, at her Gramercy Park apartment, for Barron’s glossy quarterly supplement Penta.

I was asked to come with minimal equipment, no assistant, and to make it as quick as humanly possible.

Upon arrival, I realized that, as she put it herself, Mrs Barney “wasn’t really interested in this”, which I truly don’t judge severely since I would, myself, rather give you a lap dance in the nude than let you take my photo.

After a few shots near the window, and since there was no way i was going to avoid reflections in that mirror wall, I decided to own it and send in a self-portrait on my first assignment for Barron’s…
5 minutes later, Mrs Barney got up and just said “ok”.

Last september, Rhapsody magazine, which you might know if you travel in 1st or business class on United Airlines, sent me to portray legendary writer, journalist, dandy & car collector Gay Talese up in Roxbury,CT.

It was the closest thing to vacations I had this year.