Hot Stepz Tipz: Photographing Celebrities

April 28, 2011 - PRLog -- Michael Lerner   
It's Wednesday night, ten o'clock London time.  The crowd is starting to get reckless, the photographers, all fifteen of them are starting to get annoyed.  I sit patiently, as the shouts of, "Katy! Katy!" get louder and louder.  This is my fourth time covering Katy Perry.  I guess you can say that I followed her to London, but in the non stalker sense.  The band comes out, all of them dressed in white shirts and black ties.  Katy comes out, and the room begins to illuminate with flashes.  I don't use flash, and we weren't even supposed to.  All the photographers are going nuts.  Elbows are flying, cameras blocking, photographer pit chaos.  She hasn't even approached the mic yet, but I don't move, and have yet to take a single frame.  I wait for the right moment.  She approaches the pink microphone, and wraps her hands around it.  She closes her eyes, and I put mine through the viewfinder.
   I can remember the first concert I shot.  It was The Bravery at Terminal 5, in New York City.  I'd been doing photography as a hobby up until that point.  In the pit, I kept on saying to myself how I wished I majored, rather than minored in photography.  I remember asking the other photographers for tips.  Where should I stand?  What ISO are you shooting at?  Are we allowed to use flash?  Who do you shoot for?  With answers like Rolling Stone, Blender, record labels, and well known newspapers, I decided then and there that music photography was what I wanted to do.  After the show, to much relief, I discovered that the pictures I took came out quite well, and the advice that I was given would prove to be useful in the future, as my freelance career would soon take off.
   A couple of weeks after my first show, I took a job shooting young children for a portrait company.  At the time, I thought it was a job that I' be happy with, as well as being lucrative enough to pay rent and live comfortably.  The job helped me with lighting equipment, and the twenty different ways I could pose an eight month old.  It also helped me figure out the real amount of miles I could get per gallon of gasoline for my car.  That was the only setback to the job.  I drove all over.  North shore, south shore, fifty miles east, and so on.  During that time, I would come home relieved that the crying babies had stopped, and it was time for me to hop on a train into Manhattan.  
   I started with lesser known acts.  For example the electronic, French songstress Yelle.  I also shot the grammy nominated reincarnation of Natalie Cole, Alice Smith.  I remember while shooting her, thinking how pleasant this job could be.  I've been elbowed, stepped on, yelled at, and tossed out of pits by security, but at some shows the artist and I are able to coexist in such a peaceful way.  I've also worked with Indie bands like The Duke Spirit, and the twin sisters who make up the band The Pierces.  Cute Is What We Aim For, A Cursive Memory, and The Academy Is are some of the bands that have filled the "emo" category.  Panic At the Disco and The Kooks have been two of my bigger shows, but the most popular out of all of them is Katy Perry.  It began when I went to the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan in April of this year.  Her single "You're So Gay" had begun getting small airplay and I thought it was a good opportunity.  The show was a success, and I became friendly with her management, who gave me the chance to shoot her whenever she came to New York.  Then, almost out of nowhere "I Kissed a Girl" became the biggest hit of the summer, and my photos became more popular due to flickr searches.  I was even notified by a friend who told me one of my photos was being used on her Wikipedia page.  Unfortunately, I had not been given credit, and the photo was later taken down from a request I had made.
   Now, I don't want to sound like I'm writing about Katy, but shooting her has helped me become a better photographer.  Working with her has helped me with my networking skills, my communication with management/labels, and overall photography.  I have shots of her on my Flickr page that have been viewed more than ten thousand times, and with that, comes new contacts and more exposure.  I had the opportunity to shoot Katy as well as many other acts at this years Warped Tour., which was a huge success for me. Since shooting her, contacting management and publicists has become easier only because they hope for the same shots.  Since returning from London, I can now begin to put together a solid portfolio, in the hopes of getting picked up by a publication and going on assignment.
   My ongoing photographic career has had its downs.  I've been turned down many times.  It hurts the most especially when it's a band I love.  The most recent upset came when I realized I lost my battery pack somewhere at John F. Kennedy airport.  But I'm constantly troubleshooting.  As a photographer, I have to.  My flash might quite on me, my batteries could die, I could forget my license, getting lost could hurt.  Luckily, I had an old Minolta 35mm camera with me, and I made it work.  I'm actually more pleased with the photos, probably more than I would've been with digital shots.
   I look forward to a prosperous career.  I have a bunch of shows coming up, and will submitting my profile to as many publications as I possibly can.  In parting, I would like to leave you, the reader, the budding photographer, with some advice.  You have to constantly be moving.  Building your website, handing out buisness cards, getting that pro account on Flickr(it's only 30 bucks, you can afford it), shooting your friends gig, carefully building that portfolio, and constantly doing what you love-taking pictures.  I can't stress that enough.  When you are not taking pictures, you should be dreaming about taking pictures.

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