Miami Photographer Joshua Prezant

What do you get when you put hip hop icon Missy Elliot together with a few wads of Bubblicious gum…

Missy Elliot by © Joshua Prezant

This is one of the images that people always ask me about. So I figured I would share the details:

Sometimes a photographer goes into a shoot knowing exactly what they want to do and how they wants to pose, light, and frame  the image.  And sometimes they just go with the flow and work with what they have.  I do both!  I try to have some conceptual ideas ahead of time after working with the client, editors, graphic designer, and art director.  But I always try for the unexpected during the shoot.  This was the case for this shoot.

When shooting celebrities time is ALWAYS an issue. You are eaither sitting around waiting for hours and hours for the star to show up or your waiting around for them to be finished with the 100 other things they are doing at the same time.  Then you usually have 2 minutes to actually shoot.

I know a lot of people think and assume it is because the celebrities are divas.  But this is not the case.  It is because they are working!  In order to become the top of your game in any field you have to work.  And the bigger the star the harder they usually work.  I was scheduled to shoot Missy Elliot and singer Monica on the set of a music video shoot in a mansion that was rented out for the video on Key Biscayne for InStyle Magazine.  I was set to shoot both artists in between scene for the video when they were not in the particular shot.    These video shoots are usually 2- 5 day shoots that start before sunrise and end late into the night.  On this day not only was Missy shooting the video and and doing the still shoot with me, she had 3 magazine interviews and a Tv interview as well.  The girl works!!  There was not more then 10 minutes that when by where she was just hanging out.  But luckily for me I sitting with her during one of these rare moments when she was relaxing and I saw her blowing bubbles and smacking them with her lips.  After doing a couple of enviromental shots of her in the house, I handed her a bunch more gum from the crafts table and asked her to ingnore me and everyone else and go to town with the gum.  She knew exactly what I wanted and was happy to have a a few more minutes to realx.  The image(s) above was the result.  Missy was fantastic her people were fantastic and the whole video crew was great.