How do you Shoot Celebrities?

1. Use camera - not weapons.

2. Find a best spot in the house. As close as possible, but with some empty space in front. I had a lot of practice aiming my camera at Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and others, and I found that as long as you are not bothering others, you could choose your own place anywhere. Sometimes it meant that I had to sit on the ground in front of the TV camera. Sometimes it meant that I had to walk around. And in this case, I got an absolutely best seat in the house. I moved my chair from its place to be smack in front of her, and nobody complained. :)

3. Be invisible an uniformed. Usually it means wearing a black clothing. Black melts in shadows, so you are not getting attention to yourself, and a person in black with professional looking camera must be an official photographer, so people tend to be extra nice, listen to your request, and sometimes even giving me the best spot - theirs.

4. Do your homework. Find out what you can about the place, event, agenda... Where are important people coming from? Where will they leave later? Is there anything special they will do? Positioning yourself and preparing the camera will give you best shots.

5. Know your equipment and use it to the max. In dark places (anything inside) even the most expensive equipment will have troubles getting best picture. Think of all the ways your camera can do the job and try them all. There is no way to properly judge which pic is best while on an assignment. That is done later on a big screen. What you can do here is to make sure you tried everything you can to increase a chance to get a good photo. Like taking a lot of shots. Different shots. Varying parameters.

6. Have extra batteries, memories, camera, flash... Any extras you have should be close by - not at home. I had cases where my main camera couldn't do the job, so a small pocket camera did it instead. If I didn't bring it - I wouldn't have pictures.

7. No doesn't mean no. Don't ruin event for others, but following rules loosely can save the day. No flash photography rule is fine, but try to understand what did they really mean. Here, for example, I didn't use the flash during the interview, but for signing I had no problem flashing them all even if they didn't specify when is Ok to use it again. I won't break rules until I have good pictures in the bag, but once I accomplished the best I can within limitations - it is time to expand the rules as long as nobody else suffers for it.

7. Move around. Here, my chair had perfect spot, but I still tried a few shots by leaning camera on the stage, and those were the best ones. I remember taking pictures of Bill Gates during his farewell speech in Microsoft, when I actually walked behind him and Steve Ballmer. Somebody asked me about what am I doing there, but I had my good pics from before, and I just answered that it is OK, and moved even closer where raising the noise during their talk would not be an option for security. Those were some of the best shots. In this event with Madeleine Albright, shots of book signing were taken from the stage where she was just a few minutes before. It wasn't used anymore and it provided great view to everything, so I just climbed up and started shooting a few pics before I get shooed away. Nobody complained, so I stayed.

8. Ask. Celebrities are humans too. If you ask them, you'd be surprised how accommodating can they be. Once I manage to command a group of over 50 students and Steve Ballmer into posing for me, just because I asked. Warning: Patience is not a courtesy they will extend often, so make sure that your camera is ready, batteries full, memory has free space and you know where do you want them. Commanding but polite voice, a few short jokes to get smiles, and you have good 15 seconds to prepare and another 10 seconds to shoot. Put it on high speed and hope for the best, because they won't give you another chance.

9. Do a portrait. No matter what other action or social shots you get, make sure you have a good portraits. Get close, and personal, to get all the details you can. That might be your best shot.

10. Have fun!