John Chapple, Photographer, Los Angeles

Jon Bon Jovi Portrait shoot

Once again, those fantastic people over at 500px.com have selected one of my images as their ‘Editor’s Choice’.

The picture was from a portrait shoot I had with rock star Jon Bon Jovi, in his New York apartment. At the time, my wife Peppa and I were living in New York City. When I told her about the assignment, she insisted that I take her along. The night before, I spent several hours teaching her how to set up my Profoto lights, so she could pass as my photo assistant.

The next day we arrived at the singer’s apartment, in the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan. I was a little nervous before the shoot because I had always been a Bon Jovi fan. Growing up with long hair in the Southwest of England, I owned all of their albums a t-shirts and even had a Bon Jovi poster on my wall.  He was very welcoming and directed us to where we could shoot. As the reporter started his interview, my wife and I started to set up my equipment. Unfortunately, Peppa was too star struck to function normally and struggled to even set up a light stand.

With a little help, we set up three different lighting situations and shot a few frames of Peppa in each location and then waited for the interview to finish.

I also shot a few frames, using available light.

Jon was a real pleasure to work with and although I was told that I’d only have 30 minutes for pictures, we were finished in eleven, but that didn’t matter. One thing that amazed me, he thanked us, for our time.

We left his building and walked to the end of the block to hail a taxi and noticed, illusionist David Blane during his ‘Drowned Alive’ stunt. Blaine was submerged in an 8 feet diameter, water-filled sphere in front of the Lincoln Center for a planned seven days and seven nights, using tubes for air. We talked our way to the front the crowd who were lined up to see him up close and shot a few pictures.

Last month 500px.com chose my picture of the Nirvana Baby, which received a lot of awesome comments on their website. Thank-you.

TAGS: Bon Jovi, celebrity, celebrity portrait, David Blaine, Editorial, illusionist, John Chapple, Jon Bon Jovi, magician, new jersey, new york, Photographer, photography, portrait, Rock Star