A portrait with David Bowie’s guitarist – Gerry Leonard

Last month I traveled up to New Paltz to shoot a portrait of the very cool musician Gerry Leonard for Ulster Magazine. He is also a long time friend and guitarist of the late David Bowie. I decided to shoot this portrait outside as the cafe was tiny. No room for lights inside. I setup out front at one of the tables. It was chilly but warm enough that if I moved quickly we could do the shots in under a minute. I setup using 1 gridded softbox as the main light and one small strobe gridded to light up the sign next to the table. I included a setup shot with the lights at the bottom of this post.

After about 5 minutes of testing with the reporter Gerry showed up. He was extremely kind and willing to do the shoot outside in the cold. After 5 shot I had what I needed and they packed up and went inside the for the interview. Below are the pages from Ulster Magazine and a few alternate shots.