I had a great privilege to work recently on an artistic photography portfolio for a French actor. While most portfolio photo shoots for actors are quite standard (front face shots and profile shots), we have decided to do something more artistic and unique. So we came up with so many great ideas during the brainstorm session that we had to narrow down the project to 3 thematic shoots. One of them was the Joker photo shoot and as it turned out, the Joker is still alive and he wants to put a smile on your face.

My make-up artistic did a great job with preparing the actor in less than an hour while I was busy fixing my strobe set-up which just broke minutes before (but I managed, hooray!). It took us a couple of hours to get all the different shots we wanted and it was really worth it. Everyone liked the more gruesome, bloody and horror-like shots more than other photographs. It made me really happy because I was afraid at first that these gruesome photographs were in fact too much over the top.

What helped us a lot is that we had a very specific goal and we planned the shoot from the very beginning till the very end - good planning helps a lot during a photo shoot, believe me. Although I still like to improvise during shoots (I do it quite often and mostly during TFP-like shoot for models), I also appreciate a good pre-defined and detailed plan for a photo shoot. The main lesson learned for me from this photo shoot was to be patient to my photo gear and to myself. I often stress out when a client has to wait for me so I can reposition the light, change this or that. However, I have never experienced having an impatient client and everyone appreciates the results at the end.