For the past 12 months our photographers have roamed hotel rooms, celebrity homes and even hideaways of the Hollywood Bowl in search of transcendent shots of Hollywood and arts figures in their element. The selections that follow represent just a smattering of their diverse offerings in 2024 — and in many cases the shots wouldn’t have been possible without subjects willing to go with the flow or pivot when necessary.
We asked our photographers to give us a behind-the-lens account of how they got their shots. Enjoy their visual splendor below.
ELIM CHAN
By Gina Ferazzi in Los Angeles
At the Hollywood Bowl, there is a peephole backstage. It’s behind the orchestra. By climbing a small wooden ladder to a platform and removing the trap door, I was able to photograph the conductor straight on and capture her expressions. I was using a mirrorless camera, which is completely silent.
PAUL W. DOWNS
By Jennifer McCord in Los Angeles
This was a super fun shoot as I’d just binge-watched “Hacks” a few days before this assignment came in. Paul was super wonderful to work with — funny, lovely and up for going wherever the good light was.
WINONA RYDER
By Jennifer McCord in New York City
This shot was taken in New York while Winona was on a press tour for the new “Beetlejuice,” and as with a lot of these shoots, we didn’t have much time or space. She had on this incredible jacket with “Gena” stitched on the lapel in memory of Gena Rowlands, so I asked her to push her hands deep into the pockets. For me, the posing feels classic and cool — things that are both so Winona Ryder — but it also has some sort of pensive weirdness to it, especially because she’s not looking at the camera. I love that.
DOJA CAT
By Dania Maxwell in Indio
This is my fourth consecutive year photographing Coachella, and it’s always fun when the artists are as expressive as Doja Cat was in her performance. We only get to photograph the first three songs, which can be a challenge sometimes, but luckily Doja Cat had a lot of variation in her set from the beginning.
GEORGE AND MAYAN LOPEZ
By Aldo Chacon at the Universal lot
They had a great dynamic between each other, with George striking funny poses and making hilarious faces, which were effortless for me to capture.
KEKE PALMER
By Jason Armond in Los Angeles
I was photographing Keke on her lawn when her 1-year-old son, Leo, appeared unexpectedly. He spotted his mom, burst through the crowd of stylists, makeup artists and PR people, and ran straight into her arms. It was a sweet, unscripted moment, and my instincts as a photojournalist kicked in. I captured the entire scene as it unfolded. Just as quickly as this spontaneous embrace of mother and son began, Leo had had enough and darted back inside.
BILLY CRUDUP
By Oliver Mayhall in London
Billy had an undeniable presence and energy when he walked into the room. He was in London at the time, performing in the West End production of “Harry Clarke,” where he brought 19 different characters to life. For this sitting, I rented a tri-fold mirror from a prop house, aiming to capture a unique perspective by showcasing him from multiple angles. While working with mirrors can be challenging, as composition becomes key, the mirror served as a symbolic nod not only to his portrayal in “Harry Clarke” but also his multifaceted role as Cory Ellison in “The Morning Show.”
JANELLE JAMES
By Dania Maxwell in Los Angeles
It’s hard to imagine that this picture was taken in an office, but behind that canvas backdrop is office furniture. Janelle was fun to work with, as she had a clear idea of how she wanted to look but was open to my creative ideas as well.
BILLIE EILISH AND FINNEAS O’CONNELL
By Marcus Ubungen in Los Angeles
The challenge for this shoot was capturing the close relationship between Billie and Finneas without it appearing as though they were a couple. The pose that worked best was sitting them back-to-back and encouraging them to talk to each other. As they chatted, I snapped away, and when there was a natural pause in their conversation, I asked them to look directly at the camera. That’s how we landed on this shot.
NICHOLAS HOULT
By Marcus Ubungen in El Segundo
We started with some stool poses, then moved to standing. At one point, I noticed his watch and thought it would be cool to highlight it. I gave him some prompts to incorporate more hand gestures as I moved in closer. Eventually, I asked him to go big — reaching out toward the camera while still being able to see the lens. We had fun experimenting, and this final shot ended up perfectly framing his face within his hands.
MEGAN MORONEY
By Evelyn Freja in New York City
That day we had planned to photograph outside in beautiful Bryant Park, but instead it ended up pouring. I remember waking up to a text at 5:40 a.m. from Megan’s PR team saying we needed to pivot to shooting outdoors at the ABC “Good Morning America” set. ABC didn’t have any rooms reserved for us, so instead we wandered around the halls of ABC looking for interesting rooms to shoot in and stumbled upon this full-length mirror.
LIZA COLÓN-ZAYAS
By Christina House in El Segundo
This shoot took place in the Test Kitchen at the Los Angeles Times. As a nod to her role as a cook on “The Bear,” I thought it would be cool to shoot her in the walk-in fridge, and it took no convincing to get her on board. This frame in particular was caught while she was dancing to salsa music before we headed to the fridge. Liza has a smile that can kill you.
KALI REIS
By Annie Noelker in Los Angeles
For this shoot, I remember Kali being so down to earth and relaxed. She was just so effortlessly cool and up for whatever to get the perfect shot. We made an office building look like a fashion shoot.
NAVA MAU
By Raul Romo in Los Angeles
This quick 20-minute session was such a fun moment. We shot in a small studio at Netflix headquarters, and a fun fact is that this image was shot through a small handheld mirror. I love to play with mirrors, and try to get a variety of shots however I can, and this was a moment captured candidly in between setups. Nava’s smile really encapsulates the energy and joy we all felt on set that day.
CLARENCE MACLIN
By the Tyler Twins in New York City
The day after photographing Kamala Harris’ concession speech — a moment that left us, as Black women, feeling both proud and yet unseen and undervalued — humanization was on our minds. It is always an element in this type of portraiture, and after seeing “Sing Sing” we really wanted to capture Clarence in a happy and gentle way, aspects that you can see develop in his character throughout the film. DMX played in the background, and a flower picked from the A24 terrace was the perfect addition.
CHRIS PERFETTI
By Christina House in Los Angeles
Oftentimes the celebrity portraits I do are in hotel rooms or event spaces. I find it deeply personal to photograph someone in their own home: There is a level of comfort and intimacy that comes through that you can’t always capture at a press junket in a ballroom. Chris was open and willing to play. He selected the playlist, climbed his tree, sat in his garden and laid across his couch. No hard stop pressure, no one else around. And he wouldn’t take no for an answer when he offered to help carry equipment to my car.
ANNA SAWAI
By Christina House in Pasadena
Anna is an absolute pleasure to work with. Her confident and calm demeanor allowed me to connect with her easily.
CAROL BURNETT
By Linus Johnson in Santa Barbara
All of the images were shot on a camera from the 1960s called the Mamiya RB67. Carol expressed some excitement to see some cool older film cameras. We only took photos for about 15 minutes, and she was so bubbly, polite and easy to photograph.
SHABOOZEY
By Ethan Benavidez in Los Angeles
I remember playing country music super loud the whole shoot. The color of the backdrop is inspired by Shaboozey’s love for warm tones throughout his imagery.
SEBASTIAN STAN, MIKE MARINO AND ADAM PEARSON OF “A DIFFERENT MAN”
By Sean Dougherty in New York City
The three hadn’t seen each other in a while, so the room was filled with excitement as they reunited during the shoot. We worked in a pop-up set in the A24 office kitchen, with just under 20 minutes for both group and solo portraits; their connection made it seamless. Between takes, Mike recognized my Mamiya RZ67 and we hit it off talking about medium format, the Phase One buyout and film versus digital.
MIKEY MADISON
By Ethan Benavidez in West Hollywood
Upon receiving this assignment, I immediately went to see “Anora” at the AMC theater in Burbank. I decided on two lighting scenarios; this one is based on the club scenes from the movie.
MARISSA BODE
By Ethan Benavidez in Universal City
This photo shoot took place in the Universal Studios backlot during the “Wicked” press day. There was so much going on behind the scenes, including Cynthia Erivo zooming around driving the cast and teams around on the golf cart.
DANNY FELDMAN
By Christina House in El Segundo
This portrait was part of L.A. Influential, a project highlighting people who are making a difference in Los Angeles. Danny’s career and contributions to L.A. theater landed him on this year’s list. One thing I enjoy during my portrait sessions is asking the person on the other side of my lens what kind of music they would like to hear. It’s a good conversation starter and that becomes the soundtrack of our shoot. It was no surprise that Danny selected theater music, and it was delightful to see him light up when a song he enjoyed filled the room.
MUSTARD
By Kayla James in Burbank
MUSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!
ANDREW GARFIELD
By Emil Ravelo in Los Angeles
I was scheduled for 30 minutes with Andrew, but with jumbled adrenaline rushing we got through a very optimistic six-setup shoot in under 13 minutes or so. This photo in particular was created near the end of our session when his stylist, Warren Alfie Baker, laid out a generous spread of options — and I was immediately drawn to the trench coat by fashion house Lanvin.
ANDREW SCOTT
By Ryan Pfluger in Los Angeles
Andrew is willing to let his guard down and directly connects it with the act of being photographed, especially with his gaze. Having photographed in this hotel room many times, I always try to neutralize the hotel feel, with close crops and shallow focus.
RICKY MARTIN
By Ryan Pfluger in Los Angeles
There was an immediate engagement when Ricky stepped on set, which led to creating images with a sense of intimacy and relaxation in the short time we had with each other.
YUVAL SHARON
By Erin Baiano in New York City
We were able to grab Yuval out of his rehearsal for the groundbreaking opera he was directing, “The Comet/Poppea,” in a studio next door at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC. I had my assistant Helen Ho black out the room, and we used these fun LED light wands that resemble lightsabers to give him a colorful edge light. I took some photos of him engaging with the camera, but I loved this unguarded moment where he was deep in thought.
GARCELLE BEAUVAIS
By Jason Armond in Los Angeles
Typically, I don’t get star-struck, but I must admit I was a bit more excited than usual when I got the assignment to photograph Beauvais. I’ve been a fan of hers since I first saw her as Fancy on “The Jamie Foxx Show” when I was a kid. As I walked into the shoot, I almost yelled, “What’s up, Fancy?” — a nod to her iconic role from the 1990s.
HARVEY GUILLÉN
By Victoria Will in New York City
I had the pleasure of photographing most of the cast of “What We Do in the Shadows” to mark the beginning of its final season. Each cast member brought their unique flair to the shoot, but Harvey stood out, arriving in a cape paired with an impeccably styled shirt and collar — a photographer’s dream. He was eager to experiment with reflections, movement and anything that could elevate the shoot beyond the ordinary. What a gift!
CYNTHIA ERIVO
By Victoria Will in New York City
Though petite in stature, Cynthia has an undeniably powerful presence. Before the shoot, we connected to brainstorm and align our ideas. She arrived with a vision, trust and impeccable style. I could have spent hours more, playing and experimenting with the outfits and ideas we had, but this Golden Globe nominee’s schedule is as packed as her closet.
MAGDALENA SUAREZ FRIMKESS
By Allen J. Schaben in Los Angeles
The 95-year-old artist, who was born in Venezuela, brought her own disposable camera to document her first museum survey exhibition at LACMA in August.
AARON MOTEN, WALTON GOGGINS AND ELLA PURNELL
By Shayan Asgharnia in Los Angeles
The three stars of “Fallout” flew in from different parts of the globe to talk with The Envelope in May, comparing notes about the challenging weather during production of the Amazon Prime Video series.
