An associate tells me what it’s like to shoot with the provocative Mr. Richardson.

Art Direction for Terry was a question of what he wanted to do…and we pretty much let him go.

I was really nervous to meet him, you know he’s too cool for school and I felt a bit like “the man”, but he’s a total sweet-heart while at the same time guarded. He’s a celeb unto himself!

He talked about the Lohan shoot and I asked how he had gotten her to crawl across the mirror, an obvious reference to cocaine. He smiled and said it was all about throwing so many things at the subject that they didn’t have time to say no. Which I think is his genius, no matter who he’s shooting he can convince them to be a little wilder and that’s why I love him.

Nice. Thanks for the insight.

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5 Comments

  1. The “throw so many things at them..” technique is very effective and has been advocated by many legends of photography to great success. Photojournalist Harry Benson got that iconic image of the Beatles jumping on a hotel bed by simply not letting go of the opportunity to shoot the hottest rock band in history. He would force famous subjects to kick him out or walk away and that’s how he pushed his photos into places others couldn’t, aesthetically speaking. I was also surprised to learn how persistent Irving Penn was in his portraits, often spending hour after hour coaxing his often recalcitrant subjects into the absolute perfect pose. Mid-career Annie Liebovitz had a pretty successful run of celebs in their undies, or out of their undies, as in the John and Yoko nude RS cover. Seems with mad people skills the format of the camera becomes almost an afterthought. Everytime I ask a girl to pose for ME wearing a “SLUT” tiara though, I’ve been turned down cold… go figure..

  2. How many people can say they get as much out of their subject as he does? Not many.

  3. Terrific subject rapport or not, his technical skills are terrible. Love it, hate it, he’s a busy guy.


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