Bus Stop, Anchorage, Alaska © Emily Shur
Thank you so much to Andy at Flak Photo for his continued support of my work. Yesterday marked my eighth photo appearance on Flak. Check it. I took this picture in July while I was waiting around for Sarah Palin to give the yes or no to the Newsweek cover shoot. I spent four days in Anchorage by myself. I did a lot of walking, wandering, driving, and enjoyed some good seafood. I remember taking this picture while walking back to my hotel from dinner. It was about 9pm when I shot this (crazy light), and I had had a couple glasses of wine. I use a Mamiya 7, and if you’re familiar with rangefinders you know you can easily make the mistake of looking through the lens and composing a picture (and shooting) while the lens cap is still on. I’ve had this camera for over 10 years and removing the lens cap is second nature to me at this point. I stopped to take this picture, walked away, and for some reason had this feeling that I left the lens cap on for this one specific picture. I had switched rolls and shot some other stuff by this time, but I walked back down the block and took the picture again just to be sure. Turns out I was right. I left the lens cap on on this one shot only. So glad I went back.
Everyone in LA should come to the Giant Artists book release, group show, and holiday party this Friday December 2nd! Check out THIS Los Angeles’ site for slightly more info. Should be super fun as usual up in there. An awesome special amazing talented person (that I may or may not be married to) will be there as well acting as DJ for the night.
All Images © Emily Shur
Sometimes I shoot sexy ladies and cars! Check out my photos of WWE badass Kelly Kelly on the cover and inside the December issue of Maxim. Happy Thanksgiving!
Bill Maher, at home with his dog Chico © Emily Shur
Bill Maher. I’m a huge fan. Big time fan. Still a fan after this shoot, but I just have to say a little something about this experience because I took away something important from this shoot. When I got the shoot, I was extremely grateful and excited, but I was pretty sure that photo shoots aren’t Mr. Maher’s favorite thing to do. Totally understandable. Understandable, but necessary I suppose. When we met in person, my thoughts were confirmed, and clearly this was not going to be a lengthy shoot. Totally cool. I was ready to move quickly. I had one set up on seamless lit and ready to go and another in the backyard (above) also lit and ready to go. The magazine had high hopes of an unexpected and jovial moment, but I quickly got the vibe that was not going to happen either. So in my opinion, the best way to handle this type of situation is to make the environment in the photograph somewhat unexpected or funny or sarcastic or ironic or whatever and let the subject be themselves. The humor will come through on it’s own that way. Know your subject (the best you can). Don’t base a picture on the hope that this person is going to do a cartwheel across the frame when that’s clearly not in their character or photo shoot activity repertoire. Not to say one day you won’t be pleasantly surprised at what someone is willing to do, but keep in mind that sometimes you have about 15 minutes to get the shoot done and need to bring something usable back to the magazine/client.
Anyway, Bill Maher. Sometimes I feel as though a few bad apples have given photographers, especially photographers who photograph celebrities in some capacity or another, a bad reputation. It seems our profession is not always respected as much as it should be. Granted, there are some serious cheeseballs out there, but I (and lots of photographers I know) work very hard to make good and interesting pictures of all different types of people. This stuff ain’t easy. Let’s compare a portrait shoot to an interview. The interviewer could show up with a list of very well-prepared and thoughtful questions. It doesn’t matter how smart and interesting those questions are if the interviewee continually replies with short one word answers. No one will ever reap the full benefit or impact this interview could’ve had. Oh well…I mean, clearly not on the short list of pressing world problems that require immediate attention, but I’m just saying…
I’ve watched every episode of Real Time and will continue to do so. I agree with Bill Maher’s point of view on almost every topic. I think his voice is an important one, and he is someone I was extremely excited to meet and photograph. I get that photography and pictures of oneself are not why most actors, comedians, politicians, writers, scientists, etc. do what they do. It’s for the most part an annoying consequence of fame, success, and attention, and that’s too bad. I would like for that to change, possibly for purely selfish reasons, but also for the sake of the art form.
Images © Emily Shur
This shoot for Time marks the third time I’ve photographed Mindy, and I think we found the sweet spot. She looks great, and just goes to show you don’t need an elaborate location. I mean, I’d like one, but I don’t need one. This was shot in a banquet type of room at the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica.
I saw this post recently on A Photo Editor, and the quote sums up quite well what makes a good working relationship with a celebrity subject. I really like that Kidd Rock mentioned that Clay is “pleasant to the people he works with”. I photographed Kidd Rock a long time ago for Spin Magazine at his house in Michigan. He was actually quite a nice guy after we got past a set up or two. I think he gave me a bottle of vodka or something like that at the end of the day. Anyway, I respect what it takes to build the sort of relationship Clay McBride has built with Kidd Rock. I’ve definitely lost jobs solely because the subject has worked with my competitor before, and they haven’t worked with me. It’s annoying when that happens, but I get it.
The charity-based online photography gallery collect.give announces the release of a book celebrating the project’s first 50 photographers – all of whom have pledged to donate 100% of their print proceeds to charities they’ve selected. Since 2009, collect.give has raised over $28,000 for a wide variety of charitable organizations, by selling affordable, limited edition photographs.
Description
128 pages, softcover, perfect bound, printed by MagCloud.
Design By
Heidi Romano
Photographs By
Jane Fulton Alt, Malu Alvarez, Jonathan Blaustein, Mark Brautigam, Jesse Burke, Barbara Ciurej & Lindsay Lochman, Katrina d’Autremont, Amy Eckert, Matt Eich, Jon Feinstein, Sarina Finkelstein, Elizabeth Fleming, Max. S. Gerber, Meggan Gould, Andrew Hetherington, Geoffrey Hiller, Peter Hoffman, Jon Horvath, Ben Huff, Dave Jordano, Stella Kalaw, Melissa Kaseman, Liz Kuball, Shane Lavalette, David Leventi, John Loomis, S. Billie Mandle, Kerry Mansfield, Mark Menjivar, Kevin J. Miyazaki, Annie Marie Musselman, Colleen Plumb, Susana Raab, Shawn Records, Ellen Rennard, Dalton Rooney, Jonathan Saunders, Manjari Sharma, Daniel Shea, Kelly Shimoda, Emily Shur, Allison V. Smith, Aline Smithson, Brea Souders, Sarah Sudhoff, Jake Stangel, Lacey Terrell, Sonja Thomsen, Susan Worsham and David Wright.
Essays By
Crista Dix, Darius Himes, Lisa Hostetler, Rachel Hulin, Miki Johnson, Larissa Leclair, Wally Mason, George Slade, Amy Stein and Alison Zavos.
To Benefit
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). In keeping with the collect.give mission to donate 100% of proceeds to charity, all profits from this book will be donated to the RSPCA, a charity chosen by the designer Heidi Romano.
Price
$22.00
To Preview or Purchase
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/290686
Contact
For more information, visit www.collectdotgive.org or send an email to Kevin J. Miyazaki.
Thank You
collect.give wishes to thank Heidi Romano of threestones and publisher MagCloud for their generous in-kind donations related to the book project.
This is exciting and very much worth purchasing and supporting. All the pertinent info is in the above press release, and Time Lightbox ran a post about the book today. You can see it here. I’m grateful to be a part of this book and group of talented and generous photographers. Support!
All Images © Emily Shur
My shoot with actress Felicity Jones just came out in the November issue of BlackBook Magazine. I remember when I left this shoot, I felt kind of weird about it. I’m not going to go into why, but I did. When I got home and processed the images and the weight of my weirdness lifted, I remembered how impressive Felicity was to photograph. I find this about most very good actors. (Most, not all.) I find that most very good actors treat the shoot as stepping into a role, however subtle that role might be. Maybe they are still themselves, but just a slightly amplified version. Maybe they’re a whole different person. Who knows and honestly who cares. What I do know is that this ability to perform and transform makes all the difference in the world when you’re in a studio with no props, three lights, and a fan. So, to Felicity, I say thank you. She is truly talented and I hear gives an amazing performance in Like Crazy.
Dundas Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland © Emily Shur
We went to Scotland about six weeks ago for Anna‘s wedding. So far this picture is the winner, but there are a couple other contenders I’m considering taking the time to work on. It’s amazing to get your film back and respond to only one picture you took. What’s up with that?
As promised, a brand spanking new website. Bigger images, thumbnails, updated pictures. Yay. In addition, I finally broke up with Blackberry this past Friday and received my new iPhone. So far I’m pretty into it. I’m doing well with the typing which one was one of my major hesitations in switching. I’m also super excited about Instagram. I tried to hang on and be loyal to Blackberry, and I was for a long time (years and years and years), but they were just blowing it. Yes, it was functional in terms of phone and email and international travel, but most other phones have caught up in that respect. Blackberry has not adapted to the multitude of other services that phones are expected to provide today, and I can’t get behind that. If I have to keep up and change my way of doing things to remain relevant, so do all of my bits of technology.
Oh and PS I also have representation in Asia now! Please contact Redorfe for bookings in that part of the world.
Mindy © Emily Shur
I shot this cover of Bust Magazine featuring the beautiful and smart Mindy Kaling. This was the second time I photographed Mindy, and I recently had the pleasure of shooting her a third time. Another cool thing is that this cover story was written by my friend and also very inspiring and impressive lady, Jill Soloway. I love thinking that I am one third of an awesome trifecta in terms of this shoot. Both Jill and Mindy are such ballsy and hilarious writers. I highly recommend Jill’s book Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants to all the ladies (both tiny and not so tiny in shiny or dull pants and/or skirts) out there. I read it in what felt like an hour. Mindy has a book coming out November 1st. You can pre-order it here. I will definitely be reading it.
There are additional images that go with this cover shot, but I am about to launch a website re-design so I’m keeping a couple new images to myself until then.
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