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Ricky Gervais. In New York. For the London Sunday Times Magazine. And it was one of the most fun shoots of my entire career.
Adam Hearn is the photo editor of the London Sunday Times Culture Magazine and some of the other folks I work for at the Times recommended he give me a call next time he had a shoot on this side of the Atlantic. I am so happy he did, cuz not only am I a BIG fan of Ricky, but I had just lost out on a shoot with him for another client only a week before Adam called. The story was tied to his new film, “Muppets Most Wanted”, and would feature the other star of the movie, Constantine the Frog, the world’s “Number One” criminal and a doppelgänger of Kermit the Frog. Adam kept it fairly open-ended as to what we could do…he just needed fun interaction between Ricky and Constantine for the cover and left the rest up to me. With that in mind, I went on a mad tear of propping…
…dragged my crew down to Industria on a Saturday morning and let Mr. Gervais and Mr. Frog do all the heavy lifting. Here’s how it went…
Ricky and I talk to Matt Vogel…the Muppeteer behind Constantine…about a few ideas…
…and even before we start, the fun begins…
Here are some behind-the-scenes shots of how you photograph a Man and his Muppet…
One of the best things about the whole day was having Ricky’s input as we went along. He came up with so many great ideas of what would look good, that I just had to keep my finger on the shutter and wait for things to happen!
Then Ricky suggested they each pose with sunglasses…
…and our cover was in the bag!
After a quick background & wardrobe change, the two A-Listers were suddenly at each others throats…
…but a left-cross from the Frog ended that argument…
…and gave us the opener to the story!
I also wanted to to shoot Ricky, sans Frog, but had picked up a few Froggy bits and pieces to stick with the theme, including a t-shirt with strategically-placed eyeballs…
…and a very special pair of Kermit Adidas that Ricky put to good use…
Finally, I wanted to cool things down a bit, so I had Ricky get into his trademark black…and accessorized him with some very blingy fuzzy Frog Slippers…
Then we both kicked back and enjoyed a Green Drink…
And yes…that is a Karl Pilkington t-shirt. I told you I was a big fan!
Damn Ugly Photography 