Celebrity portrait

Pay in the destination countries

Monthly, in US dollars. Each country is an Imora admission package — open one for that route's fees, language requirement and deadline.

What does the day look like?

Face time with the subject is 5% to 10% of the total job — 15 minutes to 45 minutes in total, often 10 minutes to 15 minutes for major magazine cover slots or press junkets, with publicists, stylists and brand reps watching every frame. The other 90%+ is not glamorous: 3 hours to 6 hours of set preparation and pre-lighting before the subject arrives (30% to 40%), calibrating Profoto, Broncolor, Briese and Aputure rigs, Sekonic meters, flags, scrims and backdrops, locking exposure and color profiles on stand-ins.

Capture runs tethered into Phase One Capture One Pro on calibrated EIZO monitors (10%), with digital techs handling ingestion, ICC profiles and backups. After the shoot comes selection with photo editors, RAW processing in Capture One and frequency-separation retouching in Adobe Photoshop (30% to 40%), often with freelance retouchers. Another 10% to 20% is contracts, model releases, usage licensing, invoicing and pitching photo directors. A full shoot day runs 8 hours to 12 hours with highly irregular hours: evening studio sessions, weekend red-carpet arrivals, hotel press-junket suites and heavy location travel.

Where does this lead?