Ep 012: Heather Hazzan
A SHOT: So to start, can you describe this photo that we’re going to talk about?
HEATHER HAZZAN: Yes, it is a photo of the actor, and photographer, Cole Sprouse on a rooftop in LA. This was taken in July of 2019.
How did this shoot come together? Is this an assignment, a commission?
Yeah, this was a commission. It was the “Young Hollywood” issue [of Variety]. I shot Camila Cabello and Stephan James in addition, and it was, like, the three of them together. I’m a new photographer, so I think it was just fitting that a new photographer would shoot the up-and-coming stars of Hollywood — a good fit for a fresh perspective, I suppose.
So what’s your setup for when you’re taking a photo like this?
Well, this was outdoor, LA, sunny. I believe he had just come from a red-eye [flight] and he was such a trooper. We had set up a whole scrim-shaped-natural-light situation to the left of this — you know, all perfect and tested for him — and of course, he just hops up in this other area with the sky in the background and the buildings in the background. And it kind of just worked. When you’re shooting celebrities, you have to go with the flow and follow their lead and their timing and all of that. I’m always prepared and test as much as we possibly can but, when it comes down to it, kind of just rolling with it.
How much do you plan beforehand?
Depends on how much the photo editor has in mind. I know she wanted three of the covers to have a similar backdrop, so it narrows your focus in terms of what you can do and how much you can be creative and all that. This picture actually ended up being an outtake. It wasn’t part of [the published story] at all. It’s just a funny outtake shot that I ended up sending [Cole] and he posted it and liked it. A lot of times, photo editors, a shot like this with a weird face might not be the first one that they would gravitate toward, but it makes me happy, and his fans loved it. Yeah, and he had so much fun on set and was just giving me all the things. It’s so exciting when people give me more. I love when I have to reel people in instead of the other way, when they just are too scared and don’t want to have their picture taken. That’s so much more work for me. So it’s always fun to have an actor on set.
Where do you find inspiration for something like this?
I don’t really look at history or the art books or anything like that. It’s more about the moment with my subject and creating a really vulnerable environment. I’m such a dork, and I wear kneepads on set, and everyone makes fun of me. But I think there’s this element of I’m not intimidating. I can disarm whoever. There’s no snobbery. I’m not pretending anything. Everybody can be whoever they want to be in that moment. There’s zero judgement from me. So I think that creates a fun, relaxed atmosphere.
That’s interesting. How did that start wearing kneepads on set?
I always get myself into the craziest positions, always on the ground, doing whatever I need to do, and I was like, “I really need kneepads.” And it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.
Before you had taken any photos on the day, what did you hope to capture?
Well, I shoot on film, and I think I just hoped to capture a fresh perspective, something that wasn’t so stuffy, that felt young, that wasn’t crazy strobe-lighting and prim-and-proper poses. I wanted to do something a little more relaxed and laid-back.
How quickly do you take this photo?
I think we had a few setups. But he had just jumped up there, and we went with it. I think I did a couple tests on digital — hair and makeup just went in there — but he was just having fun, dancing around, jumping around, doing these crazy faces. I don’t shoot very many men. So maybe it was refreshing to me to see someone who wasn’t so concerned with their hair and makeup and looking so perfect and pretty but could actually have fun with it, and I think that’s when the best things happen, when they lose that self-criticism.
What are some of the difficulties of working with a celebrity? It might not be a difficult but maybe just things that are on your mind that you wouldn’t be concerned with if you were doing a photo shoot with a model.
The first thing is the comfortability with me shooting film. A lot of celebrities and their PR teams really want to see everything digitally. There’s this element of trust that a new photographer isn’t going to make them look bad.
How do you go about that?
I try and say that I’ll show some previews digitally, and then once everybody okays the exposure and the settings, I just tell them the film’s going to be a million times better than what you see here as the digital preview. And that usually helps. But I think a lot of times, and maybe it’s more so musicians and actors, that it’s like it’s their brand, and they wanna control how they are perceived. You see the same musicians looking the same in all the shoots because they’re trying to live in that same world, but I think it’s really exciting when I see a celebrity in a more spontaneous laid-back atmosphere. I loved the celebrity photos of the ’90s of, like, Keanu Reeves [shot by Deborah Feingold] just frolicking around a pond. You just don’t see that anymore. Everything is so perfect and so planned, and there’s such little risk-taking that the pictures end up being the same boring celebrity shots.
So how do you look to connect with someone? And how important is that?
Connecting is everything. It’s like the only thing I care about in photography. It’s that intimacy, that connection. It’s that moment where you can feel somebody’s soul look into you and you see something that maybe everybody else doesn’t. That’s super exciting to me. I never was interested in the big epic huge shoots with, you know, a million lights. I’m so interested in the small moments and capturing that exact moment where things feel connected and genuine and believable.
Is there anything you keep in mind about how to go about doing that?
Just remembering that it’s okay to be dorky and yourself. You don’t have to pretend to be somebody else. Yeah, it just sets the stage for the whole day, everybody on set, too.
What do you think we can see about him in this photo that is that spark that you were able to find with him?
I just can’t believe I caught him in that moment with that face. The picture’s not perfect, but I’m just so happy I got that face. It’s just fun, and you can tell that he’s comfortable and letting loose and just being himself.
What direction do you give?
I actually don’t give much direction. Maybe I’ll say chin up or chin down or something like that, but it’s more about the mood and the vibe on set than anything else, and just having them feel as comfortable as they possibly can. I always say don’t be scared to take that risk. I’d rather us move through some things that don’t work to get to the really golden magic stuff than just stay in this little narrow box of movements. Go for it. Look stupid. Look silly. Look ugly. We’ll probably end up somewhere really special.
You have such a great tone in your black-and-white work. How would you describe the black-and-white palette that you’re working in?
It’s really contrasted. I usually darken my yellows and reds. I usually lighten my blues. And that really gives that depth in the skin, where a lot of the yellows and oranges and reds and browns come out. Yeah, and it’s just contrasted. The shadows are really deep and dark and black, and the highlights are white.
So you shot this on color film?
I did, yeah.
What do you like about working that way?
If I wasn’t shooting a celebrity and it was my own work, maybe I’d shoot black and white. But every time I shoot and I say like, “This is gonna be in black and white,” everybody’s like, “But we’ll have color too, right?” They always wanna make sure. I’m like, “"Don’t worry. It’s color film. We’ll have two options,” and I say my whole spiel. But you do have more control over manipulating each color, too.
What are some elements that you think about when you’re working in black and white, or maybe just when you know that you’re gonna wanna push it toward black and white later?
Usually when things are busy and distracting, I just wanna minimize those distractions and see in these two colors. I think the color image was just too crazy, and it helped ground it. At the end of the day, I just don’t want anything to distract from the person. It’s like the clothes, the hair, everything doesn’t matter. It is about the person, for me. It’s always the facial expression and having it be honest, believable or, in this case, just funny. In the best photos, to me, the element of distraction has been minimized, and I do that with retouching, too. If anything catches your eye that’s too much or too distracting, I try and minimize that so you can actually pay attention to the person and not this element of clothes or whatever. The texture of the skin and, like, human-ness is super important to me. I love seeing the freckles and the little chin dimples and beauty marks. Yeah, it just gives it this element of humanness.
Why’s that important?
At the end of the day, I just wanna connect with people, and it’s about that moment. I wanna believe that that person is there doing that thing. It’s like when I look at an image and can tell, “Oh, they don’t wanna be there,” or “They’re posing,” or “They’re trying too hard,” it just takes me out of the illusion. It takes me out of this beautiful world of photography that transports us to different places. As soon as I see that hesitation, it just ruins it for me.
How much do you consider yourself on the other end of the camera because you’re talking a lot about connecting and sharing that moment with them? Are you a part of this image in any way?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this over quarantine — you know, how we’ve all had time to really think about things in this other way — going to therapy and thinking about my own personality and quirks and all that, and learning about highly sensitive people and people with anxiety and people who are highly empathetic. A lot of times I thought that this was such a hindrance to me in this world. It was like, “Oh, I’m just too shy. I’m too anxious. I’ll never be able to do this on these big sets.” But then I realize maybe it’s that thing that my empathy helps me connect with people and helps me know when that exact shot feels congruent and believable that other people just wouldn’t be able to tell those little details. But because of my personality or whatever, it helps me find that moment.
How did that make you look at your work differently?
Yeah, I think for the longest time I thought that these things about me were really stopping me from getting to where I wanna go, but now I believe it’s the actual thing that makes me good at what I do. I didn’t go to art school. I didn’t assist. It’s just nice to know that there are different routes to becoming a photographer, and you can use your special set of of skills and what makes you you and all of your experiences you’ve had throughout your life. You take that, and then you bring that to each photo.
So another graphic element that I really love about this photo is how deep the catchlights are in his eyes. For people who don’t know what that is who are listening, it’s the little twinkly light that’s in the dark part of his eyes. How often do you find yourself considering the catchlights in an image?
It’s so funny. I actually — my assistants make fun of me — like, I hate catchlights. It actually worked really well in this photo. But most of the time… It’s so funny. I was actually trying to Photoshop them out of an image today. Some new assistants or if I’m working on the West Coast, they bring out these huge reflector boards, and I’m like, “Nooo!” It’s not just the eyes that get manipulated. It’s like under the neck and the shadow, and it’s not flattering. More light does not equal a better image. But if it’s done right, it could be cool. So I was definitely in LA with other assistants, and they probably had some boards happening here.
When you sent me this photo originally, you’d said there were a couple things wrong with it, the fact that it’s not lit or cropped properly. What do you kind of like about that though?
The imperfections are fun sometimes. When you see a perfect photo… I used to think about a magazine and what would make me stop flipping a magazine, and now we talk in like, “What makes you stop scrolling?” And a lot of times, that perfect photo does nothing. You don’t feel anything. It’s too retouched. It’s too posed. You don’t believe it. If you don’t feel anything from it, you just keep on going. It’s the question of, yeah, what makes you actually stop and want to look at something a little bit longer. And a lot of times that includes imperfection.
How often do you find yourself working in that way, kind of embracing the elements that might not technically be correct?
All the time. Well, definitely early on when I was doing everything wrong, and not going to photo school, never had assisted, I had no idea what was right, what was wrong. So it was just about doing things and hopefully making images that make me feel a certain way.
Did you have to become comfortable working in that way, or did you always kind of feel okay with not doing things in a correct manner?
At first I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and that was really difficult. It just seemed like this endless world of things that I needed to learn. But over time and working with incredible photo assistants and lighting techs who have been in the industry forever, I’ve been really lucky that they’ve taken me under their wing and [are] teaching me as much as they possibly can. And now I have to come back at them and say like, “But at the end of the day, it’s about this fun, relaxed image,” so I kind of have to find that middle ground. I wanna know all the rules first and then break them. Now it’s about, yeah, reminding myself of how I used to shoot. Some of my favorite pictures are when, you know, I didn’t have everything perfect, and I didn’t have three assistants, and I didn’t have the hours of planning and the thousands of dollars of equipment. It’s like, “How do we get back to that special quality before all of these other elements came in to perfect it?” And I think I struggle with it all the time now. Because now that you know what’s right, it’s hard to go back on that.
I wanna hit on something that we’d talked about over e-mail. When we were discussing image selection, I had asked you to maybe try to avoid anything that’s overly sentimental as that had started to become a trend of things that people were picking with their photos, and you replied that after thinking about it, you were just now realizing that none of your photos that you take are sentimental. And I know it might be a bit of a stretch thinking about it with regard to this photo, but where does your work come from?
I don’t know. I feel like sometimes I can’t relate to other photographers because I’m not that girl carrying her camera to her vacations, and I’m not on the street with my camera, and I’m not going to all the museums or reading all the books. For me it’s about the humanness. It’s like that’s how photo comes into play for me. It’s not about all that technical or artsy… I think if I had gone to art school and we had to talk about work and the meaning behind it, I would have felt really lost and having to put on this false narrative of what everything means. I just want the person to take up that space. I want it to be about them and showing an honest beautiful picture of that person and what they’re about.
How do you think you came to that?
I actually started on the other side of the camera. I was a straight-size model and then, 70 pounds later, a plus-size model, and I was really turned off by the way a lot of my curve-model friends were being portrayed. And at that time — this was, like, a decade ago — all they were were doing was Kohl’s ads, and it was really tacky and overdone hair and pushup bras and dresses, just like cheesy smiles, and I wanted to see these girls who I’d seen on castings in a really editorial, cool light. These are some of the coolest, healthiest gorgeous faces I had ever seen, and It was like, “These people are so editorial and so high fashion, and no one knows it.” And it just killed me. So I started taking pictures of a lot of my friends, no makeup, really relaxed clothing, natural light, like in my bedroom. Something there connected with people, and I think a lot of clients just wanted to see who these models were without all that stuff on them.
Photographing women is such a dominant part of your portfolio, but how do you find that your perspective changes when you photograph a man?
I think it’s the same. It’s just about letting whoever they are shine through. But as a woman, I know how a woman wants to be portrayed, and I feel empathetic towards that struggle, if you will. But with a guy, I feel like there’s just more freedom because I don’t know what that’s like, so I can let whoever they are come out. When I’m on set with a woman, there’s this trust in that they know I’m going to show them in this beautiful flattering light. That’s the start of our time together on set. And with a man, there’s less pressure, and we can just have fun.
What have you learned that has given you the instinct to take this photo specifically?
I think it’s to trust the process and trust the in-between moments and trust the imperfections and trust the spontaneity. You can plan all you want, but at the end of the day, to be so in tune with another person and to get that capture when you needed to, it’s really exciting when that happens.
What do you think we can learn about you from this photo?
I hope it’s the same thing, that it’s not about perfection. It’s about feeling something and being honest.
What did you feel at the end of this shoot?
I was just so energized by a celebrity who took risks and didn’t need to look perfect in every photo. Last year I shot a bunch, and it was this new territory because I had just been getting into it, and it felt really stagnant and, you know, boring at times. Trying to get my own ideas in there just felt like the hardest thing ever. It still does because these people have their own teams, and how do you maintain any of your voice when you’re being thrown into this brand? So I think I was just really excited we were able to have fun and take some risks.
Interviewed on January 14, 2021.
(This transcript has been edited for brevity.)
Links:
Heather Hazzan
Video of Heather on set with Cole for Variety