On March 11, 2016, I met and worked with singer/songwriter, Billie Eilish.
Back then, she was 13 years old.
I was acquainted with her by her brother, Finneas.
When I met her, I wasn’t starstruck or even impressed because I thought she’s just another bleach blonde white girl from Burbank. She had those blue doe eyes and she wore oversized sweater and jeans and Nike Air Force Ones. Billie at first was very shy and quiet, I mean, she didn’t know me so she was reserved and just scanned everything around her. She was so young and there wasn’t anything for me to connect with other than this photo shoot.
Meeting people for the first time, sometimes it’s awkward at first because literally I’m thinking how well can you be in front of the camera? Are you photogenic? Are you animated? Will you just stand there and give me the deer in head lights look? With Billie, seeing her physical attributes, I knew that the camera will love her. And in fact, I was right.
When I saw her with the natural light, her alabaster skin and those blue eyes, I knew that shooting her by a window would be magical. Call it instinct or just my experience, I knew I will get something cool and simple. And I did. She’s the type of subject that can just sit there and every angle of her face, the camera would just love. She literally just sat the chair and she knew instinctively how to move in front of the camera. I think it was the nuances of her movement that I distinctly remember. She understand her body and her emotions so well because she emoted through her eyes. It’s innate to her how to do it. I can’t explain it to people. It’s either you have it or you don’t. She does.
After that, the shoot went rather quickly. I changed into her next look and I shot the rest of the time in the studio. All they wanted were portraits to use for publicity for magazines and blogs and so I did. Again, in front of the camera, she can’t go wrong. To this day, it’s still hard to edit down her pictures because almost all of them are perfection.
I think the shoot lasted an hour?
It’s was super simple. No makeup. No hair. No styling.
Just her and her clothes.
It’s funny because people get a little awkward when other people are there watching you shoot.
However, it didn’t bother her that her manager and her brother was there watching.
They left and a week later, I handed them the pictures and I thought that was it.
Again, at this point, she was no one. She wasn’t signed to a record label. Other than Perez Hilton give her a shout out in his blog, she was relatively unknown.
A few months had passed when her manager contacted me to say that her record label is going to contact me to negotiate in buying an image that I shot of her for the album cover.
I was blown away. I never knew that this little photo shoot would go anywhere!
And so this is when the business comes in.
I’m not going to disclose monetary compensation here.
Let’s just say, I was low balled.
It was partly my fault because I should have held out.
But, they were dangling this little nugget that if I refused, that I wouldn’t get the cover for her album, Ocean Eyes.
Eventually, I said yes and let’s just say, I regretted ever since.
I don’t regret shooting Billie. Don’t get me wrong, I love working with her.
It’s the Hollywood machine that I regret participating in.
These people are conniving, deceitful and will use you until they get every ounce of you.
I know that’s being dramatic and you probably would think, well, it comes with the territory and I should have known better.
They got what they wanted and they moved on.
I mean, I did get what I wanted too because I use her image for my website and publicity.
I just felt I just got cheated and scammed.
Again, it’s no fault of Billie because it’s not her, it’s the people behind her that’s doing everything.
Even after the whole deal when through and the manager said to me that I could shoot Billie again, well, that never happened.
All I got was, “Very sorry she's already way, way up!”
Meaning, she’s too big for you and how can you even ask.
When people ask me, how I got to shoot with Billie Eilish, I say, it was a fluke.
I was very lucky to have the opportunity to work with her because perhaps it did raise my “clout” factor. Though they never did credit me on that album cover.
Nonetheless, it is what it is.
What I don’t like when the Hollywood machine takes advantage of minority owned small business and capitalize on the hard work and effort that I made for myself.
So, my advice to any photographers/artists out there — have a model release form at hand.
To all of Billie’s fans, here are some outtakes (never seen before) pictures of Billie’s photo session with me!
