When I met and photographed filmmaker Ken Burns

I photographed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns backstage on the San Jose State campus in the Silicon Valley. I was told by his PR person I had a time limit of minutes to meet Ken Burns and photograph him. I was pretty excited to meet him as we both focus on American sub cultures, blending the past with the present, and we both have books published on the subject of WWII.

I have photographed a lot of celebrities for magazines in my career and in most cases the celebrities typically gives me a short window of time to photograph them as they are very busy. It is a challenge to create a photograph that evokes emotion to the viewer when time is limited.

I decided to photograph Ken Burns on a black backdrop and then add vintage photographs raining down all around him in post-production. The idea is that the films Ken Burns creates are filled with hundreds of old photographs to tell the greater story of the subject of his film. Ken Burns and his team sifts through thousands and thousands of photographs for his films. I wanted the photograph to look a little mysterious as history is a mystery and we have to put the pieces together to figure out the truth. I have a feeling Ken Burns and my path will cross again in the future and I look forward to chatting with him again.