Greg Williams Explains How He Shot This Stunning Portrait

In a brand new e book, photographer Greg Williams is letting you know the way he’s achieved it! We’re speaking about getting these beautiful images of celebrities that he’s identified for. On sale now’s Greg Williams Photo Breakdowns: The Stories Behind 100 Portraits. And in it, you’ll see and examine how he shot the pictures. A few of them, just like the lead photograph of Cate Blanchett, have a extra easy story. Simply because it’s easy doesn’t imply it’s not an enchanting second. In reality, there’s fairly a narrative behind the picture.

All photos used with permission. The textual content is getting used with permission from the writer. Greg Williams Photo Breakdowns: The Stories Behind 100 Portraits is on sale now.

Nice used a Leica SL with a Leica 75mm lens to seize this second. He shot at 1/250 sec, f/2.9, and 800 ISO. The next is an excerpt from the e book and the way this picture was shot:

In 2020, the organizers of the Venice Movie Pageant had been decided to make the pageant work regardless of the pressures of a world pandemic, and in some way they did. After residing by means of the storm of terrible coronavirus lockdowns, it was as if the clouds parted and for ten days the solar beamed down on Venice. Cate Blanchett was the president of the jury, and I shot this image of her on the point of go to a premiere. The pageant protocol mandated that everybody needed to put on a masks, and so Cate felt it was solely applicable that I {photograph} her in her masks. Due to that, this image not solely captures a second in time within the historical past of the pageant, but in addition of the world as we all know it.

It’s an actual environmental portrait. The hallway she is in has these frames inside frames of those Moroccan-cut shapes, then steadily the frames get lighter the farther you go into the picture. The response was wonderful after we posted this photograph, and I feel it was as a result of we discovered a second of glamour in one thing that had successfully taken that away from us.

As some extent of critique, what additionally provides to this picture is the truth that it’s in black and white. That provides a timeless look to the photograph that in any other case may’ve had very drab colours. Due to the way in which our eyes work, we’re additionally drawn to Cate very prominently. There’s her define in opposition to the white background, her gown, and the easy act of her placing her masks on whereas the pandemic was taking place.

On this photograph, Cate has a really cinematic and traditional silhouette. Mixed with the gown, we get vibes of Morticia Adams within the traditional Adams Household.

Round Cate are the doorway frames, and the lights all present an environmental background — making us assume that we’re in a palace or one thing. However what’s much more fascinating is the place the main strains are. The road within the background going by means of Cate bisects her not completely in half. This provides to the visible play of the picture that’s masterfully captured throughout one in every of our darkest occasions in latest historical past.

Greg Williams Photo Breakdowns: The Stories Behind 100 Portraits is on sale now. And in it, you could find extra tales than simply the one in every of Cate.