tony-danza

This photo of Tony Danza was made on the day I also shot his formal wedding photographs. When the formal shoot was over, we decided to spend a little extra time producing some publicity and promotional shots for Tony.

My aim was to produce some very informal but strong character portraits. I had asked Tony to lean forward from his seated position and rest his chin on his hand.

The main light was a frontal flash in a pan reflector. A silvered reflector, just out of view below the image, served to lighten shadows.

The reflector also introduced secondary catchlights into the eyes. The light on the white, seamless background was balanced with the main light to produce the clean, white background in the image.

I shot a roll of 35mm film-about 36 exposures-of the basic pose shown here, encouraging Tony to change his expression as I shot.

I chose to reproduce this specific image in this book because, to me, the pensive look captured an honesty and sensitivity in Tony that's often missed in more commercial images of the actor.