 How's it? How's it? Andy Gotts's portrait photography is a perfect presentation of the power of people's personalities to shine through a photograph. You may not be familiar with the name Andy Gotts but I guarantee you that you are familiar with the faces that he has been photographing through his long and illustrious career. The reason that we're looking at Andy Gotts's photographs today are that they are a perfect illustration of what happens when a photographer focuses on the real thing, the real point of a portrait photograph, which of course is the subject. At the heart of Andy's photographs is a real connection with the people whom he is, you know, photographing. I think this connection that Andy has with his subjects is best illustrated by the story behind the iconic portrait of Tony Curtis. Andy and Tony had a session lined up and Tony Curtis wasn't feeling particularly well but he said he would honor the session anyway so long as in his words that Andy could make him look like an icon one more time. The idea that came up with was to paint Tony Curtis' face with the American flag and Tony loved the idea and they had the session together and he then jetted back to London and soon as he landed he you know went through the images from the session and he emailed one over very quickly to Tony Curtis' wife Jill who had instantly emailed back and said look you know Tony he collapsed this morning and he's not very well and would you mind sending over a you know high res version of the image that you've shown me so I can print it out and show it to Tony at the hospital. Of course he did this and Jill went and had an A4 print made of this this image and she she took it to Tony, he held it in his hands for a while, fixated on it for about two minutes and then he turned to Jill and he said, Gilly this is the best photograph ever taken of me and of course he died that afternoon and you know that and he says you know that this this is the fact that it was the last photograph ever taken of him and that it's his favorite is is so powerful and you don't get this kind of connection with people who you are photographing if you don't have the ability to you know engage with them as real people the reason that you know Andy can get such connection with people is I feel down to kind of like sort of four aspects and the first one of those really is that you know he doesn't take an awfully long time with the session itself you know he said maybe 10 minutes max and and that's kind of really it you know that they are very short they are to the point and they're not allowing the the subject to become bored as as it were and you get to this point by actually spending time with the people who you are going to photograph and he says he likes to think of the photo sessions as more kind of like you know in a long chat with 10 minutes of shooting in there and and that's such a good good tip for especially portrait photographers is to make your subject feel comfortable find out things about them you don't have to make silly small talk and stuff but just show a genuine interest in the things that interest them and he says he doesn't really talk about you know upcoming projects or anything like that with with people because he doesn't want to photograph the character he doesn't want to photograph Danny Ocean he wants to photograph George Clooney Han Solo that's that's for Andy Leibovitz to photograph for him he wants to photograph Harrison Ford as you look at these photographs you'll also notice there is something that is mostly missing and that is any sort of props right he says he doesn't take any props to a session the props that you do see occasionally in the images are there because they were either in the house of the of the person being photographed and they included them in in the photo shoot not Andy saying can you use this can you use that because you know again you if you look at an overall alliance on props and things like that it takes away from the true purpose of a portrait photograph which is connecting connecting with the person seeing the character in their face and that includes the lines and the bumps and the wrinkles and the spots and all these things that quite often especially when you look at celebrity photography are retouched to oblivion you know and and Andy says if you look at many of his interviews he says he doesn't like airbrushing he doesn't want to you know smooth out all that kind of stuff he wants the realness and and I think it's a mark of respect for him as a photographer that the celebrities are quite happy to go along with this Scarlett Johansson you know she had some some acne on her forehead and he said look do you want to you know wait until it dies down because I'm not going to airbrush it out and she said no no look you know we'll do the session because young ladies will see they will see my picture and say do you know what she has she has some spots just like me and and I think that's a wonderful you know a wonderful approach and it's because he and he's being upfront he's being honest and real and and you get the respect back from the people whom he is photographing I think when you treat people this way ultimately you really want to allow people to be themselves that is that's the real mark of a portrait photograph that has that power and the presence to really kind of you know linger and Andy's sort of approach is to kind of let these these stars these icons and they are icons embrace they're in a child you know they can either be silly or serious or what have you but that's that's a great way of seeing something that is the person themselves and not the persona that is around them so how does this all benefit you as somebody who wants to take great portraits of of people okay well firstly you know we've looked at the approach keeping it simple you know that they you don't want to over clutter things it just needs to be you the subject and a camera and one or two lights if that's what you want to do but keep the set simple keep it so you don't need to be thinking about the technical aspects of things your job as a as a portrait photographer is to connect to that person so keep things simple it will make your life a lot easier it is tempting of course to also think about the effects that you can put in later on and you know playing in Photoshop and things of that nature but if you start doing that then you are put I think you're putting the process in the wrong direction that you are trying to make the photo later rather than making it in camera rather than you know doing the best you can do right now and as soon as there's a disconnect and you'll mention we strike this whole thing we've talked about connections with people soon as there's a disconnect between you and the subject then that's when the photograph starts to fall apart and no amount of Photoshop gymnastics or stuff like that is going to rescue that well now failed image every time you read an article on interview with with Andy he talks about the wider things that go on around the celebrities that he's photographing and listening to Clint Eastwood play jazz and all these kind of you know sort of things and being in rooms with three great sort of comedy icons you know it's it's the experiences and they happen and Andy's able to recount them because he is spending time to you know just have a conversation have a chat with people that he's photographing now he's extremely lucky that you know he is able to spend this time with celebrity probably as again it's that mark of respect that he's built up over the years that they know that he isn't going to waste their time Paul Newman called him one-shot gots because he was you know as he turned up to to go and photograph Paul Newman and Paul Newman was like well we're done already I said yep we're done you know so he's not wasting their time and so when you as a photographer are going to photograph somebody you know be you know somebody who you know we're a model does anyone you know doesn't really matter dedicate most of the session to talking with them getting to know them explaining your ideas talking through the shoot that you're going to do don't waste an hour taking the same picture over and over and over and over and over again with the expectation that it's going to be different right it's not going to be different no matter the number of times you press the shutter it's not going to change but if you spend in an hour session 45 minutes talking with the person connecting with them you know engaging them in the session the results are going to be so much better I guarantee you right so that's the whole I think that's the secret really here is is to talk to people to connect with them keep the images simple and be like Cartier Brisson in in the studio or taking the portrait that there is a moment when something just comes together and the more that you look for it the more that you will start to recognize it and I guarantee it will improve your portrait photography 100% it will make it so much better there are a number of really great portrait photographers working today and they may not get the recognition of people like Aberdeen and Penn and all there's there's lorded other names from the past but they are extremely worth checking out of course you know and and Mark Seliger is one of those portrait photographers who works in sort of fashion and and magazine world whose work while it's slightly different to Andy Gotts is I think is absolutely stunning and well worth you checking out if you are interested in portrait photography and I've linked to him over here check out the video his wonderful presentation of his photography thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon