DOP extraordinaire Leslie dela Vega of Fast Company called me up last Fall to see if I could do a bit of an unusual shoot in New York City. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was scheduled to be at a press conference in Harlem and Leslie wanted me to cover him and the presser the way I would cover a campaign event.  No formal portrait session was scheduled, so I needed to tease out a portrait of the man somehow.  Though often quite challenging, this is actually one of my favorite ways to shoot portraits.  I lucked out like crazy for this shoot.  Schultz stood in front of a moderately clean background with diffuse cloudy-day light coming in from one side. There were other NYC photographers there covering the press conference, surely watching me work like a mad, singularly focused machine- they must have wondered what the hell I was doing.  Howard certainly wondered what I was doing.  While he was walking from the presser to a tv interview setup inside the Starbucks, he turned to me and said “You’re sure taking a lot of pictures of me.”

What could I say?  I smiled and took some more pictures.