I will be the first to admit that, on occasion, I come up with an idea that just does not work. While sketching out the shots I'm going to take, I always look for interesting ways for my subject to interact with his surroundings. Shot at the Punta Mita beach resort, there were a lot of nice backdrops to utilize. Walking into the patio setting where the shoot was to take place (yes, those are mariachis playing on the right side of the patio), I walked through a fantastic doorway/arch. Envisioning the best of director John Ford's shots, I thought it would be great to get a shot of Conrad Vernon in the doorway looking out at the ocean. If he photo editors at Stumped? wanted to monkey with the contrast and darken Vernon's form they'd be able to create an even more stunning shot. I drew a brief sketch of the shot in my notebook and moved on. During the shoot itself, I told Vernon what I was imagining, showed him my notations and he reacted enthusiastically. I took one shot of him from about twenty feet away and another from about eight feet away. It looked good... until I developed my film. The first shot seemed acceptable at first, but the second shot turned out to be downright awful. With Vernon in the doorway, leaning against the wall, it appeared that he was uncerimonously and unquestionably leering at the girls in bikinis who were sunning themselves by the pool. Here's the tolerable and the really bad (and funny). Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men.... • Picking up a thought strand from the middle of the above paragraph, I have to say that anytime I'm photographing Hollywood talent (and particularly directors), I try to casually alert them to the fact that A) i know what I'm doing and B) I have done a significant amount of preparation for their specific shoot. Since I like to shoot my subjects interacting with their environment, it's generally better for me to not have them worrying about whether I know what I'm doing while I'm taking photos of them. Worried confusion is not a good look on many people. When I was shooting Paul Reiser I was outlining my next shot to him and he was starring at me with a perplexing look of curiosity on his face. "Is something wrong?" I asked him. He shook his head. "I'm just surprised that you mapped this all out," he smiled. • My photo of Vernon standing just inside the dining hut has to be one of my personal favorites. I have a copy of it hanging in my office at home. However, as I look at it now, I realize that Vernon had ducked his head into the shade because the sun was bloody hot and the air temperature was as well. I wonder whether or not the photo would be much changed if Vernon was in full sun light.
