I had the opportunity to photograph a Houston Celebrity recently while on assignment for The Buzz. The Buzz is a neighborhood magazine whose distribution reaches Bellaire, Memorial, West University, and Tanglewood.
This month, the stories covered cooking, more specifically, grilling and the subject was/is a popular Houston news anchorman Bill Balleza. When I learned of this, I knew I wanted to do something that pictured him as Master of The Grill. Originally, I was thinking of bringing a bit of gasoline to put in his grill to get some high flames. And then after about 2 seconds of contemplation, I thought that lighter fluid would work just fine. I wasn’t really sure what my insurance would cover.
So there we were in Bill’s backyard. One of the editors of the magazine was at the shoot as was I and my assistant, Bill, and one of Bill’s friends. we took the cover shot over and over, each time adding different levels of lighter fluid into the empty barbecue pit. Add too much lighter fluid and it appeared that Bill was on fire. Add to little lighter fluid and you really couldn’t make out what was happening in the background.
Imagine you’re watching your favorite TV show, and a series of commercials starts to run. At the end of these commercials you normally see the news anchor for your local news station describing the stories that are going to be run on the 10 PM news. After this description is done you see the news anchor staring at the camera with a smile.
For the longest time I thought being a news anchor would be easy. All you had to do was sit there and stare at the camera and smile. It wasn’t until he deals for and asked if I could take his photograph also in front of the flaming barbecue pit.
“Sure no problem” I said. So we got bills for an end to the apron, holding the cooking utensils, and the pit filled with lighter fluid. On cue my assistant through a match into the pit, and the pits ignited! Right at that point bills friend jumped out of his skin!
The key from the grill was so intense, but you would never know it when looking at this portrait of Mr. Balleza. Without a doubt it takes a high level of professionalism to hold that pleasant expression while being that distracted.
I’ll never look at a news anchor the same again.
