joshua kessler

An old joke I always tell is that I do not know anything about sports but my obsession with all things automobile allows me to keep my guy license. So when I got the call to shoot Cam for Campbell Ewald my initial reaction was, ?Wow that is so awesome!? Without having a clue who he was. I then hung up and immediately Google stalked him. I now know that in addition to being an incredibly nice guy he has quite the resume:

Heisman Trophy (2010)
AP Offensive Rookie of the Year (2011)
NFL Rookie of the Year (2011)
Pro Bowl (2011)
NFL record for most passing yards by a rookie: 4,051 (2011)
NFL single-season record for most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback: 14 (2011)

I have now been to the Sundance Film Festival five times and it is never easy to describe the experience of being there, let alone photographing there. I have often said that you have to run from one shoot to the next. For the most part, that is only a slight exaggeration.

We were having our first sit down lunch of the week at the Pizza Hut all-you-can eat salad bar when I got the phone call. Another photographer had cancelled and they needed to fill the time slot. The only catch was that I needed to find a location, get there and set up by 2 PM. It was now 1:25 PM. We hastily paid the check and fled the restaurant. As we pulled into the parking lot at 1:35 I got a call from Mandy's publicist saying that they were at the location and where was I? My assistant dropped me off and went to find parking while I literally ran to the shoot with a stand and head in one hand, pack in the other, backpack and camera bag. I had to set up with Mandy and crew looking on. Everything went into slow

This may have been the second time that I have had a brush with Anderson. The first time could have been years ago when I was invited to have lunch at the ABC TV cafeteria by my good friend Diane Becker. I know I was in line at the salad bar behind Bill Beutel and I seem to remember Anderson close by.

For someone who often plays the bad guy, he could not be nicer.

Justin is my neighbor, well at least we live in the same neighborhood and I generally like everyone in my neighborhood, so we got along fine from the get go. What sealed the deal was when I learned that we both shop at Sol Moscot for glasses. The difference is that he has a model named after him; I can dream.

A lot has been written about the cast of the Jersey Shore in a short time and now I feel compelled to tell all about my experience. The real inside story is that they are all very nice! I enjoyed talking with each of them and could not be happier with the images; it was a great day of photography.

I have been trying to think of something original to write, but decided to settle for plagiarism. Below is what I originally wrote when I Blogged about the shoot.

Photographing Elijah was one of those days that reinforce the stereotype of what it is like to be a celebrity photographer, that we hang out with cool people and do cool things. We only needed to do two simple shots, so we shot at my place. It was as if Elijah came by to hang out, drink some coffee, talk about music and oh yeah, we shot some pictures. Usually, before I photograph someone, I search for information about his or her interests to find common ground for discussion. With Elijah, it was so easy because we have so many common interests from music to cameras. We discussed everything from the Stone Roses first album being one of the greatest records of all time, coffee brewing tips, London and the eccentric greatness of a Widelux camera.

The icing on the cake was that Elijah went straight from the shoot to appear o

My favorite television program is the British car show Top Gear. Meeting Steve, an alumnus of three episodes, I naturally had questions! I almost forgot to take any pictures.

John Mayer

This is the second time that I have photographed John. I was fortunate enough to photograph his first album cover and it was amazing to see the transformation from nerdy guitar playing kid to Grammy Award winning artist.

Samuel l. Jackson

Ever since I was little, purple has been one of my favorite colors and it photographs great. I had read that it was also one of Sam?s favorite colors. Sam likes purple so much that he convinced George Lucus to have Mace Windu carry a purple light saber. This photograph was a publicity shot for the Spike T.V. V.G.A. awards. They asked for a standard white background and for me to pick a colored background for an alternate shot. Purple was the natural choice. It was a total coincidence that he chose to wear a purple shirt.

Luke Wilson:

This is one of my favorite images. A friend says he looks like a modern day Errol Flynn.

Maggie Gyllenhaal:

Basically, I was smitten!

I only had a small amount of time with Ted and I was warned that he notoriously hates having his picture taken. During the first few minutes of the shoot Ted seemed to be ignoring my direction, his publicist then ran up to me and said, ? I forgot to tell you that he is deaf in one ear!? I then proceeded to yell at him and he was completely gracious.

This is the second time that I have been fortunate enough to photograph Tilda. Our initial meeting was in 2001, during my first trip to the Sundance Film Festival. To give you a window into the times, on the previous day (to my chagrin) I watched George W. Bush be sworn in as the 43 President of the United States and when I asked Tilda what music she was listening to she mentioned this new band that I had not yet heard of; Coldplay!

It was nineteen years ago when I first "met" Jennifer Jason Leigh. I say, "met" in quotation marks because at the time I was a lowly, all black wearing, photo assistant. Even though I was strongly discouraged from entering into discourse with the subjects, I got the impression that Jennifer was a really nice person and an incredible actress. Fast forward to the present. I now have confirmation that Jennifer is very nice and a joy to photograph. I've never liked to work with models because they, well, model. True actors are such a treat to photograph because they have such control over their bodies and emotions.

A couple of years ago, I read a story about celebrities and their cars. One of the most memorable was about William H. Macy and his 1950's pick-up. All of the other celebrities had fancy cars and ?Bill? had an old beat up pick?up. Being a car nut myself, when I found out that I was to photograph Bill, I knew what I wanted to talk about. It appears that he still wants to fix it up. I?m sure that I am the only photographer that he has worked with that was more interested in his pick-up than his latest project.

Philip Seymour Hoffman

I had photographed Phil exactly a year before. It was nice to revisit the same subject under the same circumstances and make a completely different photograph.

Patti Smith

I told Patti that I grew up in the small version of Detroit: Youngstown Ohio. She said ?Ya, I spent my 30th birthday there.?

The irony was that this was my first time directing video for a client. It was in no way intimidating to direct a famous director my first time at bat.

This image was made at at the Sundance Film Festival and I had the luxury of having a studio so I decided to take a chance and do old Hollywood style glamour lighting with hot lights. The space for the studio was in the basement of a building built in the late 1800?s complete with only two circuits for power. Once we figured out how to maximize every outlet without blowing a fuse, all was well. I explained all of this to Maria and then said, "You know like the famous George Hurrell photographs." The next thing I knew she had channeled Greta Garbo, Marlene Deitrich and Joan Crawford all at once.

It is always nice to reconnect with a subject. I had photographed Paul when he was a kid, starring in the movie L.I.E. Now years later, I learned that he lives not far from me and actually goes to school around the corner. I liked him as a kid and I like him as a neighbor.

Russell is a whirlwind of activity just standing still.

This shoot was actually of Culture Club; during the time they were filming an episode of storytellers on VH1. I wanted to do a set of single shots of the whole band, as an excuse to photograph George alone. Knowing the public history of the band, I though it would be the most diplomatic course of action; I had no idea. George walked in perfectly made up and ready to shoot, so I started with him. As soon as we started, John began having his makeup done. Within earshot George started ? he never loved me? and so it went. I just wanted to say, ?George it?s been a few years you might want to get over it.? Being that I was not John, George could not have been any nicer to me. Needless to say we never did the group shot and the magazine ran a spread of the single shots. The set was inspired by a Frank Sinatra television special from the sixties.

When I photographed General Odierno, he was the commanding general in Iraq under General Petraeus and was awaiting senate confirmation hearings for his next post as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army. In an about face, It was announced today, that General Odierno will now be heading back to Iraq to take over command from General Patraeus. Regardless of how you feel about the war, I am happy to report that from my brief experience with General Odierno; we are sending our best officer for the job.

This photograph was taken during the making of a video portrait I directed, called the State of Yo. The world would be a better place if everyone could spend a day with Tom.

The State of Yo can be found in the video section of this site.

My cousin Jamie lives in Berkeley, California. This photograph supports the stereotype that even if you do not live in Southern California you must have an orange tree in your backyard.

I was originally sent to Tampa photograph Tom and his fiance Julia. The gist of the story was about blending their separate lives into one. Tom is a jewelry designer and behind his house he has a workshop. It was not a good location for the couple shot, but it was a great photo. I could not help myself.

I photographed Jerry in Wichita, Kansas. Which is ironic because Michael Wichita gave me the assignment.

Note to self, read the story you are photographing more closely before hand.

I was in the midst of the Atlanta portion of the Maxwell House Coffee shoot when I got another assignment from AARP to tour the country: Tampa, New York, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Nashville, Dallas, Portland and Phoenix. The plan was to leave directly from Atlanta and start in Tampa. In the haze of a big advertising job, I read about the first subject, Bert Coker, an eighty-year-old widow that still works at the deli counter of a Publix grocery store. Those are the facts. In my interpretation and with a dash of stereotype, my perception was that I was going to photograph sweet Uncle Bert, the eighty-year-old good will ambassador of the deli counter and widow-ER. Imagine my surprise when I met Alverta ?Bert? Coker. I was even more surprised when I was told that I would have to wear a hair net while in the deli and down right shocked when Bert kept asking me out! Well maybe flattered.

My friend Michael is a painter and a good one. When we met a couple of years ago we immediately bonded over art and our native Ohio. I always thought of Him as my painter friend who grew up back home. As a testament to his passion for painting, I often forgot about his day job and then one night I visited him at work; Michael is the drummer for the legendary Lynyrd Skynyrd! Being an extraordinary drummer is where the rock star stereotypes end. A few years ago to fend off the rigors of the road he started taking a small canvas and paint on the road and has settled into a wonderful routine of rocking hard, traveling through the night, painting all day in his hotel room du jour and then starting all over again.

www.michaelcartellone.com

When I was little I could not say my sister's name Sarah, so she became Cheech. On this day though, she was Ms.Kessler, Waldorf teacher. Visiting my sister?s classroom is truly like entering a fairyland.

My cousins Debbie and Ezra are modern day magicians. Years ago they were among the early members of Moshav Zofar, in the Aravah desert in Israel. A moshav is a cooperative community of farmers. By using irrigation they are able to grow the most beautiful red peppers in the middle of the desert. They made something out of absolutely nothing. A few years back Debbie started a side business, giving tourists a Bedouin experience. The camels are just not nice, so we went with the always-cooperative donkeys.

Last year I boarded 47 airplanes. Many of those flights took me to parts of the country I would not have found on my own and I consider it a gift. I often say that I love making photographs, but more importantly I love that it allows me to meet extraordinary people and Aleta is one of them. Unfortunately, like so many other people she got caught with unfavorable terms in her mortgage and is going to have to move, but yet was incredibly positive.

Photographing Doris was so amazing on many levels. Doris is the only author that I've read that I have gotten to meet, I was able to photograph her in London and on top of it all, she reminded me of my grandmother. I feel like I was given a great gift to be able to meet her.

Dr. Schaaf is such an inspiration. He has a traditional dental practice, but for the past twenty years he has been the backbone of the Free Peoples Clinic in Chicago. He still rides his bike to the clinic three times a week.

Supposedly, Ella negotiated with the photo editor for a bottle of champagne as a modeling fee. I arrived bearing gifts.

George and Marianne are two of the sweetest people I have ever met. There are many stories to go along with this journey, but I think my favorite happened even before we left town. This photograph is part of a series of ten that I did for the AARP bulletin. The job ended up being ten shoots in ten cities in two weeks from Alaska to Puerto Rico. I received the call for the assignment while driving back from another job in Washington D.C. with my assistant Danelle and I was a little daunted by it's scope. A few hours later, while still driving, I turned around and before I could even say anything Danelle said, ? I would love to go to Alaska with you.?

My cousin Hannah is an art therapist in Jerusalem. It is great to see how art can change troubled kids lives.

For a while I have been saying that I have morphed from a photographer into a ?visual handyman? a hybrid director/photographer. Over the past couple of years I have been adding video to still shoots and shooting stills to accompany my video work, now it has all blended together. This shoot was a milestone because it was a true hybrid, the still shots were just as important as the video and vice versa. This is the future, where the content is cohesive regardless of whether it is still or video.

When Lourdes was showing me around the back yard, I had a feeling about the garage. I sheepishly asked, ?Is there a car in there?? Lourdes replied, ?Yes. My husbands favorite child.? My jaw dropped when she opened the door to reveal the 1982 Corvette that Esteban has owned since 1984.

One does not photograph Margie; one rides the wave.

My cousin Mickey teaches English at Washington State Community College in Marrietta, Ohio. Mickey's background is in acting and scriptwriting, so the schools auditorium was a perfect location.

Patsy Parker is one of the best people you will ever meet.

My mother?s cousin Stanley has asked me to photograph his collection every time I have seen him. Unfortunately, I was never home with my equipment. On this occasion I happened to have everything I needed.

If I had been driving I would have wrecked the car. I felt as if I saw a mirage! The whole way to Karl and Terri's house there was adobe house after adobe house. This was a gift in Yuma Arizona.

Spike Lee for Nokia

When I first started incorporating video into my work the simple goal was to bring my still images to life. This video is not only an example of quintessential Josh photography ? high color and a blast of fun? but hopefully it will make you laugh.

The world would be a better place if everyone could spend a day with Tom.

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gregg lhotsky

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joshua kessler

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