London Film Festival

Just over two weeks ago I finished working on the 2009 BFI London Film Festival where I was shooting for Getty Images as the inhouse photographer.
It was a busy 14 days shooting, covering press calls during the day, premieres - both red carpet and inside arrivals - in the evenings and after parties at night.
Although not in the same league as the likes of Cannes, the LFF is growing in stature each year and seems to have good backing behind it. The opening gala was for 'The Fantastic Mr Fox' which attracted George Clooney, his model girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis and Cindy Crawford. Elsewhere there were plenty of well known faces attending the premieres and parties.











As you'd expect, as well as snapping away during the festival I got to speak to many people involved in the films and learnt quite a bit about the upcoming movies. A couple that seemed really interesting were 'No One Knows About Persian Cats', about the underground rock scene in Iran and 'The Prophit'which went on to win best film at the award ceremony which concluded the festival.
Below are the stars of the 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' Negar Shaghaghi and Ashkan Koosha posing with Colin Firth, who is backing the film and director Bahman Ghobadi. Also, director Jacques Audiard and screenwriter Abdel Raouf Dafri from 'The Prophit'.






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Valkyrie Premiere

Following on just a few days from the Winslet/DiCaprio London premiere was the screening of Tom Cruise's latest film, 'Valkyrie'. Not bad for what is generally considered a quiet month for the industry.
Tom arrived with his wife, Katie Holmes, and even posed for photos before setting off for his usual marathon autograph signing session, which lasts hours. You can't deny the effort his makes to his devotees, but I do find Mr Cruise a strange man.
But as with the 'Revolutionary Road' premiere, I was pleased with my photos. It was great to get such strong images one of Hollywood's best known couples.





www.samirhussein.com

Revolutionary Road Premiere

A huge amount of photographers were down in Leicester Square as the Titanic duo Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio walked the red carpet together. Kate has been in the news a lot recently after scopping a Golden Globe and being nominated for a couple of BAFTAs.
I thought I got a couple of standout images of Leo and Kate - I just hope that equates into sales, given the amount of snappers at the event.







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Defiance Premiere

Happy new year!
So, this was my first job of the year and after nearly two weeks of very little camera action I was keen to get back to some photography. I could have done without the minus temperature conditions and the zip on my Lowepro camera bag breaking, but even that didn't stop my enthusiasm to get going again.
Daniel Craig was the star of the film, alongside Jamie Bell, but other than that there were no real exiting names to turn up. I was quite pleased with my photos though, considering I'd done so little over the Christmas period. All my equipment was working fine, which was also a relief.
One other thing - I'm now aiming to update my blog right after completing a job. Last year, due to work load etc, I got quite far behind in keeping the blog up to date, which meant missing out on sharing a lot of what I do. But, with the start of 2009, I'll be looking to post in real time.

Flawless Premiere

After a very brief and dull job photographing Prince Charles arriving at Mosaic Talent Awards for Excellence (as I'm in a rush it's not really posting these photos) I rushed to Shaftsbury Avenue for Demi Moore's latest film Premiere of 'Flawless'. This wasn't deemed a big enough film its premiere hosted in Leicester Square, so instead 30 or so photographers were given a pen to shoot from outside this small Odeon Cinema, right on Shaftsbury Avenue with passing traffic and the public swarming around us.
Given that Demi Moore was arriving with her husband Ashton Kutcher, this was never going to work. And sure enough when Demi's and Ashton's car drew up, the waiting public and paparazzi surged forward, largely blocking our way. It was incredibly messy picture wise and their entrance to the cinema was over very quickly with barely any posing from the A-list couple.
However, I still managed to get what turned out to be a few great frames because after the two of them walked past me, totally out of the blue, Ashton tapped Demi on the shoulder turned her round to look in my direction before pointing at me (see photo below). Could he hear me shouting among all the other photographers and public? I doubt it. Perhaps he thought he recognised me.

Madagascar 2 Premiere

This was a long way from how I'd like to spend a Sunday afternoon, thanks mainly to the pissing rain and freezing temperatures, but Leicester Square it had to be.
The big names to show up were Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett-Smith, wife of Will Smith (all below). The rain come in bursts and it as a battle keeping my equipment dry, but despite this I got some stong photos. It helped that the stars made some kind of effort to pose up despite the weather, although Chris Rock couldn't stand still for a second in the cold. Apart from these American stars who all the voices in the film, Danielle Bux (2nd from bottom photo) showed up with boyfriend Gary Lineker to much attention.

Barroso Visits Downing Street & Bunch of Amateurs Premiere

This was my second job inside of No. 10 Downing Street on a commission from the EC, whose President, José Manuel Barroso, was meeting Prime Minister Gordon Brown for talks.
No. 10 is much larger inside than you'd imagine and I was given access to photograph Barroso and Brown walking though the Prime Minister's home before they undertook a press conference in one of the many grand rooms on show.






Later in the evening it was down to Leicester Square for the Royal premiere of 'A Bunch of Amateurs'. The film doesn't feature any particularly big names, but the Queen was in attendance. This date had originally be put aside for the Royal premiere of the new Harry Potter film, but that had to be put aside as the release date was put back to next year, which is why the Queen was now attending a fairly low-key film now.
Of the cast, Camilla Arfwedson (below), attracted the most attention.

'Body of Lies' Premiere

Leonardo DiCaprio was the only draw for this one and there was barely anyone of note who showed up. All-in-all it was very low key premiere, which meant just getting head shots of Leonardo was the order of the day.
This is because newspapers and magazines tend to you headshots of male stars, rather than full lenghts normally reserved for the more glamarous looking girls.

James Bond 'Quantum Of Solace' World Premiere

This was probably the biggest premiere of the year in London, with anticipation even eclipsing the Batman and Sex and the City screenings. James Bond of course needs no introductions, but the fact that this was a Royal world premiere with Princes William and Harry walking the red carpet for the first time added to the build up.
The whole of Leicester Square was taken up by the premiere as a huge crowd gathered from early in the day.
With all this in mind, outside of the cast there weren't really any huge names who turned up to attend the screening. I also had problems with my flash quantum battery, meaning by the end my flash was only firing in about one in four frames. This was particularly annoying as it was the Princes who were last to turn up. However, I got one good frame of the only time they looked up at photographers (below).
Other than them, the main centre of attention was Bond himself, Daniel Craig, and the bond girls including Olga Kurylenko (seen below).

Easy Virtue Premiere

This was the final of the BFI London Film Festival premieres I was covering and it was all fairly straight forward. Jessica Biel was the main draw, but director Stephan Elliott bought along Fizz the dog, who apparently also stars in the film, and made sure the dog was given a lot of attention by kissing it in front of photographers.