Recently I had the honour to photograph a fellow colleague - the Girona based sport and documentary photographer Eddy Kelele. There is always a different feeling when photographing another photographer. Something between fear of the quality control and an honour that I’ve been trusted by someone who actually knows what the game is all about.
Eddy is an incredible person and professional. With decades of experience, published photography books and portfolio full of commercial and cultural photographs that will remain in history.
He was one of the first people I’ve worked with when I moved to Spain. I assisted him in a shoot with the professional basketball player and top medalist Laia Palau for La Vanguardia. I was with almost zero Spanish (Castellano) and nervous as hell. But my professionalism and experience took over, helping me to remain calm and concentrated.
The shoot was quite quick as it goes in such environments, well scheduled, with perfectly mapped location spots and poses. The experience was great and very nurturing. We had a great time and the final result was better that I’ve imagined.
This time around the task was different. Eddy asked me to take some portraits of him for a project he’s currently working on. Of course, I agreed straight away - it’s always a pleasure getting involved in anything related to photography.
We were supposed to do one quick photo. Instead, we ended up playing for 4 hours, changed 3 different light settings, 2 outfits and completely lost perception about time. The job definitely got done perfectly, but also we had a lot of fun.
We used 2 constant lights on each side of his face, a white background and at the end the door near by to make the background look black - photographers’ tricks and treats ;)
But I’ll tell you a secret - we didn’t actually his proper studio as it was supposed to be “just ONE quick photo” and his studio seemed too far away for us (3 min walk :D). So, we decided to set up a little studio in the pasillo in his house. Literally meter by meter square space, but you don’t really need much of a space for a classic portrait.
And here are the results - just another proof that you can create anywhere if you want to. With or without a proper studio, with or without a proper camera, what you’ve got is what you need to make something good right now.
