The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets From One of the World's Top Shooters

shoot a stage production and get a sense of the audience. You have the seats, and usually a huge gap, and then the stage, and then some more space, and then the actors. Most photo attempts at this have a big hole in the middle.
     
    Unless you can turn things around.

    I was on assignment for National Geographic Traveler to shoot the Disney-MGM studios. One of the big shows there is the “Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.” It’s a huge set, and sort of fun to look at, but the action is spread out and distant.
     
    This was back when Disney would actually jump to it for a major publication. I suggested we stage a show at night, just for photos, and I’d actually be on the set, using a long lens and shooting back into the audience. We’d have to manufacture an audience and redirect the choreography of the show.

    No problem. Disney put out the word for audience extras and about 500 or so people showed up. They gave me two pyrotechnic crews and a lighting crew, plus my own assistants, and a whole bunch of strobes.
     
    We flipped the set, with my camera angle now being where the action usually took place. Instead of looking into darkness, I was looking at spectators. We set the actors in motion, leaping the fire. I ran five cameras per leap off of a foot pedal at various shutter speeds. Each camera caught the strobe exposure, freezing Indy and Marion as they escape.

    You have to be really convincing and confident when you set this type of stuff up, ‘cause people are working really hard, and lots of dough is being spent, and there is no guarantee the picture will even get published. Thankfully, this one did.
    I Like to Shoot Weddings—Vietnam
     

    I spent the week shooting for the book
Passage to Vietnam
on the back of my fixer’s motor scooter in Hanoi. We did a number of jobs, some arranged, others just knocking around. While driving, a couple of ladies in traditional dress passed us in traffic on another scooter. We started following them, and I was making pictures and they were laughing.

    My fixer turns and says, “It’s a wedding. Do you want to go?” Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson aside, where I come from, you just don’t crash a wedding and start shooting pictures. “Can we do that?” I asked.
     
    “No problem,” came the reply. In Vietnam, everybody’s on a scooter or a bike, except the wedding party. On this special day, they get one huge car and stuff everybody they can in it. Sure enough, the wedding limo comes by us on the street, and my fixer maneuvers our little motorbike next to it and gestures to roll down the window. Rapid exchange of Vietnamese.

    “We’re invited,” was all he said.
     
    I spent the day as a guest of honor at this wedding of complete strangers. I was never more graciously treated in my career. I stayed with the bride and groom right till that emotional moment where reality hits the bride that she is now with this man, in a new home. Just an amazing day, one of those gifts you get when you have a camera in your hands.

    “I spent the day as a guest of honor at this wedding of complete strangers. I was never more graciously treated in my career.

    I stayed with the bride and groom right till that emotional moment where reality hits the bride that she is now with this man, in a new home.”

     
    Get Good Advice
     

    It’s important to get good advice as you start your career. I’d just been promoted at the Daily News to the studio (photo lab). In News parlance, I was still a boy. You weren’t a man until you went on the street as a shooter.

    One of the older guys motioned me over. “One of dese days, kid, you gonna be sent to shoot da perpetrator. And you know, he ain’t gonna wanna be shot. He’ll be coverin’ himself up. People screamin’ and shoutin’ all over da place. Police pushin’, tryin’ to get the scumbag outta da precinct.”

    He looked at me intently, jabbing his finger at me for emphasis. “Dis guy ain’t gonna want his picture taken, ya know, like I said. So you wait, real calm. Ya got the camera around ya neck wid a wide lens and a big flash, but you don’t even got it to your eye, ya know? It’s just there, hanging around your neck.”

    “But you’re ready, ya know, kid?” he continued. “Dat guy comes by you and he’s all covered up, people screamin’, and you just say to him, quiet like, real conversational, like you know ‘im, you just say, ‘Hey, $#!%head.’”

    “And I swear ta God, kid, dat guy’ll look at you!