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Los Angeles-based photographer Stephanie Diani recently had a couple of gleeful assignments for the Fashion & Style section of The New York Times: shooting Kevin McHale and Jane Lynch of the hit show Glee.
Stephanie has been working with the editors of The New York Times since she first started freelancing in 2000. These recent Glee-ified assignments were for two separate Fashion & Style stories, but were both shot for photo editor Elizabeth Bristow—who Stephanie describes as “great!” Both were pretty typical assignments for Stephanie, who’s a primarily portraiture/celebrity portraiture photographer. The first assignment was to shoot Jane Lynch for a story about the release of her memoir, Happy Accidents.
Stephanie describes the shoot,
Jane had literally just been photographed for People Magazine with her wife and their daughter and she was on her way to shoot a Healthy Choice promo immediately after we finished, so there was the kind of extra pressure that tends to make my palms sweat. However, years of freelancing and problem solving has taught me never, but never, to let it show if I’m stressed out or hurrying so hopefully she didn’t notice me wiping my hands on my jeans as I set up my lights.
For Kevin’s shoot, things were a bit more relaxed. The photos were for a column called “What I Wore” where the subject keeps a week-long diary of their outfits. Stephanie would be shooting Kevin in a couple of his chosen looks. Stephanie states that this “assignment was a little more specific than usual because they needed a head-to-toe image shot against a relatively simple background, but everything else was up to me.”
For both shoots, Stephanie used minimal lighting setups and had approximately twenty to thirty minutes with each subject,
Although I love going to a shoot light and keeping it simple, I’m really looking forward to having a Team Diani with me on assignments once the recession turns around and budgets get larger. I heard a photographer say recently he didn’t understand how one was supposed to make a beautiful photo if one also had to be concerned with lugging gear, setting lights up and dealing with logistics. I have one word for him: multitask.
However, even without a Team Diani, Stephanie was able to shoot both Jane and Kevin in their homes with relatively no hiccups,
As with any shoot, the challenge is always to be efficient in getting in and getting out, negotiate any quirks of the particular subject’s PR people or of the subjects themselves—though both Kevin and Jane were very nice and easy to work with, so no issues there—and come up with something visually interesting or engaging that fits the story.
The Times was happy with the resulting photographs, with the McHale shots receiving an, “Oh, he’s cute!” reaction (a statement with which Stephanie is in agreement). Now Stephanie says she has a goal of trying for the complete deck of Glee cast members. “So far they’re the only two I’ve got, but I’m hopeful.”
