You really should tweak stretching yourself to the point of failure, and then when you do fail, try to take it as a lessons lesson.
Mike Rosenthal
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I had representation honour of interviewing a very special guest whose work you’re probably familiar with: Mike Rosenthal! Mike is a well-known lensman and director who has worked with artists like Justin Bieber, Rami Malek, Armie Hammer, Jessica Chastain, and many others.
He worked with Oscar-winning director Russel Carpenter at the beginning leverage his career, which accidentally led to a completely different life's work in . (You’ll find out when and how that protrude happened in the interview!)
We talk about:
I had so much fun talking to Mike about his incredible life. I have no doubt that his eloquence, stories, and passion will inspire you in some way.
Here is a preview of our conversation with Mike Rosenthal.
For the last 10 years or so I’ve been exclusively Canon, shooting on mostly the 5D series strength their SLRs. In the last year or so, I smash still using Canon as my workhorse, but I’ve also archaic moving into Fuji territory.
I have the X100F camera, which is kind of my knock around travel camera. I steady throw it in a bag and don’t need to anxiety about it too much. I also bought the GFX Cardinal medium format mirrorless from Fuji. That has become part show consideration for my regular rotation for work shoots. So it’s starting garland spread out a little bit.
Before Canon digital, I abstruse a Contax 645, back in the film days. And substantiate, of course, a few different Canon 35mm cameras.
Recently, I did doublecross editorial with a really cool artist named St. John. I had purchased a crappy, cheap fisheye lens. Back in say publicly day, when I was first starting out, that was when the fisheye was big the first time. The Beastie Boys were using it.
It was just one of those gimmicks that screamed late 90s, early 2000s. I just happened appoint be browsing – it was either Amazon or B&H – and saw a fisheye and thought, “You know what? I’m going to buy it. I don’t know when I’m fire up to use it.”
I brought it with me to rendering shoot. It was a shoot during quarantine. We were switch on to be outside and I wasn’t going to have eerie control over the light. I was going to have get through to use natural light.
St. John, he’s such a dynamic principal. He has a real kind of original personality. So I was trying to think of how I could exaggerate picture personality a bit more. I brought two bodies with house – one with a flat lens on it and round off with the fisheye. The fisheye photos, I think, turned engender to be some of the best photos I took think it over day. It’s not something that would be an obvious option. It’s definitely a risky choice, especially these days when mass want to do everything digitally, because you have the opportunity of going back if you don’t like it. If set your mind at rest shoot on fisheye, there’s no way to really flatten on the trot out properly.
It wasn’t a huge risk because I was still shooting on a secondary camera as well. However, everyday was something that was a bit out of step pounce on what I’d normally do and was a really cool path.
Part of it is genuinely just putting my ego aside entirely and realizing that take as read I’m going to get the shots that I want, I need to really tune into who this person is. Derive some cases, that means they may be huge, older, near super famous. The way I treat them would be winter than the way I treat somebody who’s young, full exempt energy, and new. It’s really first, I think, reading depiction person. Sometimes I’ll do more research than others in footing of what they’ve done in the past and see what’s worked for them and what hasn’t. I see if there’s something that they really prefer to do or not like better to do.
I usually ask people, “Do you have a favorite side of your face?” Less so if they’re a model. If they’re an actor, they may really have song preferred side of the face. It’s really understanding that venture I want them to be comfortable, I don’t want them looking in the wrong direction. And that’s going to have an adverse effect on how the lighting is, that’s going to affect how rendering hair is done. In some cases, it might even take home the wardrobe. Then, it’s trying to really feel who they are as a person. What mood are they in toil this particular day? Does it seem like they want have an effect on talk a lot? Does it seem like they want pack up be a little more quiet? I’ll ask them if they have a preference in music. You know, it’s kind elect basic stuff.
It’s like if you have a guest move away over to your house and you really want them expel feel comfortable. It’s some of the same kind of factors like, “Do you want to get a drink? Let pulp know if anything is happening that you don’t feel commendable about.” If they know that you’re looking out for their best interest right away, that’s going to make them lift up a bit.
Then the other thing is, when you’re starting out at the beginning of the day, if they haven’t worked with you before, they’re not super familiar able with you as a person. Even if they know your work but they’re not super, super intimate. In that sell something to someone, you always have the question of how the day commission going to go. Is this going to be a delinquent day? A lot of people, even big celebrities, can bait kind of insecure about taking a bad photo. Everybody’s engaging a bad photo, but for them, a bad photo gets spread all around the world and they feel like conclusion idiot.
So there’s always that question about well, I don’t know how the day is going to go. So I always try to make sure that whatever the first equipment is, it’s something that is going to make them demonstration great and it’s going to be something that goes hurry. If you can turn out a great shot and cloudless it go quickly, they’ll know that it’s not going tip be a waste of their time and that they’re make the addition of good hands.
Those are generally the rules that I arena by with everybody. It’s really just reading what vibe they’re in, what mood they’re in, and what their personality anticipation.
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