This is an image I shot roughly 16 hours ago on an (obviously) special occasion. Just as hundreds of people all around me I took hundreds of shots of on of the world’s most famous celebreties. Having neither the equipment, nor accredetation, nor the elbows for it, I was unable to get the “perfect press picture” that mostly everybody tried to get. I caught his face clearly on some, his back on others, flashlights, screaming fans, agressive journalists etc. etc.., but this is THE shot I felt excited about, though is some people might send it straight to the trash bin of his hard drive.
This image is parasited with so many objects, particularly the guy’s head behind the celebrity, the big grey and blurry mass in front, the photographer on the side, not mentioning that my “target” is only small on it. The flaws are obvious but for me, the magic is there. It’s a instant where I caught his expression, while he warmed his hands, cold from signing autographs in the icy Berlin winter.
Photographs need time to age but unlike a good wine, a lot of pictures become weaker as time passes by. Impossible to judge, in all my excitement, what will I and the world will think of this in years to come. As I said many times before, it’s all about that feeling in your stomach and all that is left to say now, is that I have a good feeling about it.
I love the feeling of privacy in the picture. Perfect.
the shot is great because of the contrast between the intimacy of the moment and the chatic mass of people around dicaprio. i think a clearer shot might have been weaker