Working to Create a Portrait of F. Murray Abraham

I had been trying to get a portrait session scheduled with F. Murray Abraham when he came to Boulder for the film festival, but I couldn’t get it set up. The festival couldn’t accommodate me, the podcast host, The Hollywood Reporter, was and then wasn’t communicative, and I was on my own to get a chance to make this Oscar-winning actor’s portrait.

So, I did. I worked with what I had to work with. In situations like that, it’s all you can do.

I teach photography and video production and often tell my students that we, as photographers and video producers, are essentially problem solvers. We get into a situation and figure out the best way to use it to make a photograph.

So, here comes F. Murray, along with his granddaughter, out of his car and is greeted by the crowd at the film festival.

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And my portrait of him in studio light of a TV photojournalist once he entered the Boulder Theater, and I worked to get a pose that worked for my lens.

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All that matters is the photo. Getting the shot. There’s no excuse for missing it. As a photojournalist, you must get a shot, that’s repeated to you many times over the years.

And so, we do. By whatever means necessary. We don’t come back empty-handed.

Oh, no. We get the shot.