The NEW STATESMAN commission CHRIS FLOYD to shoot BILL GATES.
With an exceptional ability to swiftly engage and direct his sitters, Chris captured these striking and compelling portraits within the confines of a 5-minute sitting with one of the most famous, wealthy and philanthropic individuals on the planet! #billandmelindagatesfoundation.
Such fabulous work Chris and huge thanks to the NEW STATESMAN for this wonderful commission 🙌.
Please scroll down for Chris’s somewhat breath-taking review of the shoot! 👇
“The shoot is due to start at 5.55pm. I have 8 minutes to get a cover and an opener. By 5.45 we are ready. Time to test the lighting. Tom turns off the room lights. Ten seconds later they come back on again. Damn, there must be a motion sensor in here. The room lights are as powerful as our photographic lighting. We try several more times but the same thing happens. We will have to trust our judgement that we have the power relationship between the four lights right.
Now it’s 5.57. No matter what, he is leaving at 6.03pm. At 5.58 Bill Gates and New Statesman editor Jason Cowley emerge from the interview. Jason enthusiastically bigs me up to Bill, tells him I’m great….quick. Being quick is the ultimate compliment in this landscape.
The adrenal state at this point is off the chart. I dread to think what my blood pressure is at.
I had been told in advance to not try and engage him in conversation: ‘Don’t even bother.’
I open with, ‘I’ve been told to not even try and engage you in conversation.’
He does not reply.
I begin to direct him. Being free of having to talk meaningfully is liberating. Simple directions. Lean forward, lean back, turn this way, move that hand etc. When photographing people who wear glasses you’ve got to pay big attention to the danger of reflections. You’re managing so many variables and challenges and trying to communicate with the subject AND trying to get a portrait that’s good enough for a cover.
We begin. A few seconds later I turn to one of his people and ask, ‘Can you give me a two minute warning when we’ve got that much time left?’
‘Sure.’
She then looks down at her phone, ‘Oh…actually you only have one minute left.’
In my head, I’m screaming at myself to get something from him that displays a hint of character or individuality.
She is counting me down. ‘Twenty seconds.’
With 15 seconds left I exhort him to ‘Give us a wave before you go, Bill!’
His face lights up into a warm and playful chuckle. His hand comes up to do an almost cartoonishly over the top wave goodbye. Then he is up and gone.
Tom looks at the metadata on the images and declares:
‘Four minutes fifty seconds. 103 frames.’”