Director José Padilha was editing his second "Elite Squad" film at Technicolor in LA when we met him for this portrait session, originally for Serafina magazine. The idea was to take a close up portrait of him holding some "weapon" prop, like a toy gun, or a toy granade, to make a connection with his "Elite Squad" films.
So, I flew into LA LAX early in the morning, and drove straight to a Target store to get the props. A little later, I met my assistant at Calumet, we picked up the lighting equipment, some coffee, and headed to Technicolor. After we went through all layers of security, we finally made it to the studio where he was going to be working on his film. We were early. I explained my assistant about the weapon idea, and showed her a little drawing with the lighting set up, so when the doors opened she knew what to do. We had to have everything organized and thought through because we were allowed only 15 minutes with him. There would be no time at all for improvisation!
But.. as a photographer you have to be prepared for the unexpected, always! Specially working with "real" people (as oppose to models). Padilha and his team arrived and met us at studio's entrance. He was very friendly, fun, and really sweet. As I started to explain how the photo was going to be, he stopped me and said "I won't hold any prop, and I won't do any pose at all that suggests I'm holding weapons. I'm not a violent person and I don't want to be seen as such". Great, understood. What now? 15 minutes. That's all we had to come up with a different plan, set up, and... shoot a wonderful portrait ;)
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