It doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there...

Can't take your eyes off Paula Adbul. Why would you?

Before the fire department, rowing, and parenting, I found waking early about the worst punishment I could imagine. About the only thing that might drag me out of bed during single digit hours was a photo shoot. And I’m not sure why I scheduled this one so damned early. We were shooting Paula Abdul in Los Angeles for the cover of US Magazine.  I chose a rental studio I’d worked in often. It had gorgeous daylight and room for lighting setups too. Mickey Rourke lived upstairs; the studio shared an elevator where his pistol-packing girlfriend Carré Otis had dropped her purse and suffered an inadvertent discharge. You could say it was a hip spot.

Ms. Abdul was going to bring her own hair and makeup people. My crew arrived at seven, and commenced a frantic load-in and set-up, so as to be ready to go at 8:30, when we had called Ms. Abdul.  Of course, there was next to no chance a bona fide pop star would show up at that hour but it would be fun to try.

Growing up, my mother had instilled in me a neurotic fear of not being late. If that meant arriving a half hour early and cooling one’s heels in the parking lot so be it. My kids’ orchestra director phrased it: early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late. While that concept has caused no small share of agita in my personal life, professionally it has stood me in good stead. No surprise we were ready to go at that ungodly hour, I about choked on my espresso when at 8:33 (close enough!) in walked Paula Abdul. 

Rather, in scintillated a tightly-packed scrum of people with a teeny tiny afro-ed figure at the center, visible only by the top half of her round-as-a-basketball hairdo. In my memory we all froze, only regaining normal time as Paula’s posse disappeared into the makeup room, a loudly slamming door the only sound announcing the arrival. 

Not the strangest turn of events. My assistants and I went back to primping the set. I used to love to shoot with furniture from this company called Dialogica. Their furniture was all curvy shapes and abrupt angles, done up in brilliant jewel shades of velvet. I ended up having a fight with them about this shoot because apparently we put a tiny mark on one of the (ridiculously expensive) chairs. Many increasingly irritated phone calls took place between the magazine, the furniture people, my people. Then they all magically stopped when Paula herself ordered twelve of those very chairs for her dining room table, having seen them on my set.

People think celebrity photo shoots are non-stop hanging out with rock stars but for all our early morning preparations, we were about as close to Paula Abdul as if we’d been standing on a platform as her train went by. My agent Danny used to talk about the Zen control of your set, of how to assure you were controlling everything without appearing to have your finger on the scale. When shooting major stars, there was always a question of “whose set is it?” I was so taken aback first by my subject's early arrival followed shortly by her disappearance into the makeup. I had oft noted how my makeup artists often spent more time with the subjects than we got on set. But Paula had brought her own posse, I didn’t feel comfortable even sticking my head in there to say “hi.” And despite her early arrival, just after 8:30 AM, we didn’t shoot frame one ‘till after lunch, ‘round about 1:30. 

That afro hairdo I’d noted on the way in? When she showed up on set, her hair was pin straight. I guess that’s what took all morning? She emerged, said hello and we began to shoot. We were doing a beauty shot first, on a set between soft boxes, slightly long lens for the graphic quality that makes a good cover, which put me about three feet from her. I was shooting looking down into my Mamiya however the effect put the two of us together in a little tent sort of set up. 

I quite naturally offered her some direction, “look into the lens,” or something innocuous. Immediately her main factotum pulls me aside, “Please, if you have anything to say to Ms. Abdul, tell me and I will tell her.” In other words, don’t speak to my subject, even though she’s sitting two feet from me and filling my viewfinder? What the actual fuck? In hundreds of portrait sessions, including many superstars and several psychopaths never have I had a subject tell me to talk to her people. I was so stunned I set back to shooting, leaning over to ask have instructions relayed instead of telling her directly. 

Dr. Pepper and I spent a lot of time discussing the seduction of the photo shoot. Not literal, but almost certainly truly. I’ve gotten really good in the ensuing decades at relaxing and sharing trust with my portrait subjects. That would be literally impossible if I couldn’t speak to them. This was such a weird affectation and ego trip that I couldn’t believe it. The five hours to straighten her hair was fine, all in service of the shoot. What could be the point of not allowing the photographer to speak with her? Maybe she’s really shy and can’t stand to speak to people? Or maybe it’s a weird power play thing. It certainly worked, as we were all just so freaked out we turned up the music and got with the shooting. 

And let me tell you something. These pictures are incredible, and there are a million of them. She may have spent five hours in makeup and had a weird affect where I couldn’t speak with her but goddamn does she bring the funk. Shot after shot, roll after roll, setup after setup she hit her mark. I didn’t realize till much later how great it is to work with dancers. You don’t have to tell them anything, it doesn’t matter, show them a polaroid or sketch and turn them loose. Whether it was those huge gestured leaps pulling twenty feet of backdrop or tight little geometric asanas she moved in such a deliciously beautiful way as to be astonishing and mesmerizing.

Hard to admit then, as who wouldn’t want to hang with me and socialize?  Shockingly, Paula Abdul wasn’t there to hang with me. She was there to move her body in interesting ways in front of my camera. And for all the singing, choreography and criticism, she is primarily a dancer par excellence. I don’t feel slighted I didn’t get to become besties. I feel blessed to get to record an artist at the top of their game, doing what made them famous. She moves like Jagger, maybe better.