spike
Spike Lee. Mr New York. The guy who did the right thing.
Spike is one of those celebs who just has that aura of respect amongst everyone. Wether it be his cast, sportspeople or even red carpet photographers. It’s like we all decided that he was cool regardless of what he did post Do The Right Thing. Thats probably why he’s allowed to have statement tuxedos like the NY Knicks inspired orange and blue zoot suit he wore to the premiere of his movie “Highest 2 Lowest” at the 78th Cannes Film festival where I got to shoot him.
The morning was spent at a Photocall for the movie which stars rapper ASAP Rocky in his first acting role, and longtime legend Denzel Washington. The photocall had been fun and light hearted with both Spike and Denzel showing the newbie how it was done. The red carpet carried on in this way with the three clearly having fun doing various combos of stars up and down the carpet. When half the carpet were watching Denzel, Spike decided to have a bit more fun and ran over to all the photographers on my side and posed infront of us which sent everyone a little crazy. Half wanted to shoot It - half wanted to pose near him. I quickly realized that I was probably not going to be in the shot much because I had one of the “worst” positions on the carpet. So I just held my camera out and gave it my best shot blind. The funny thing is I did later find a wide version of this shot where you can just see me on the right of the frame - the only photographer shooting.
While Denzel and ASAP did their walks Spike was standing and watching just a few feet from me. One of the benefits of having one of the first positions is that the celebrities do end up just standing next to you while they wait to walk. I’m not really the type of photographer to shout at the talent on the carpet. Luckily this Cannes I had a few loud people around me so I could just use that to my advantage for the most part. But Spike was just there with no one shooting him. So I just…said his name. Not shout it, just say it as if I was a friend getting his attention. To my surprise he looked right up at me. I quickly gave a half smile and pointed to my camera, and while most others were shooting down the carpet, he took a couple steps towards me and looked right into my lens for a few seconds. It was nice. It felt like the first professional black card I’ve ever played.
