TECH FRAMES PER SECOND
THE RAW
AND THE COOL
Photographer Josh Goleman used a combination of digital and 16mm film footage
to create hip profiles of fashionable young people for a classic shoe brand.
By Holly Stuart Hughes
TO HELP BRAND PF FLYERS SNEAKERS AS AN ICON OF “Authentic American Style,” Adam Larson, principal and founder of the Boston design firm Adam&Co., hired Brooklyn, New York, photographer Josh Goleman to shoot still portraits and video interviews of young and creative people who look cool in the old-school sneakers. “He wanted to spotlight people who are in the right spot—not super famous, not completely unknown— but with an individual style and an individual perspec- tive,” Goleman explains. Larson had originally conceived the video interviews as simple, straight-on shots of the subjects talking, but Goleman suggested making each video a little different by documenting each person’s daily routine and incorporating footage he shot with a more raw, “run-and-gun” approach. Until recently, Goleman worked for music photographer and documen- tary filmmaker Danny Clinch, first as an intern, then as an assistant, digital tech and, eventually, director of photog- raphy. Like his mentor, Goleman enjoys shooting from “a documentary perspective.” For PF Flyers, Goleman told Larson he would like to shoot with a handheld DSLR as well as a 16mm film camera, and “just let stuff happen.” He notes, “Considering that I’m shooting the video and stills, we don’t have time to get a tripod and lock every- thing in and light everything.”
ALL PHO TOS © JOSH GOLEMAN
Goleman landed the PF Flyers job
after he photographed Larson’s wed-
ding last year. Goleman, who shoots
a few weddings each summer while
working with The Wedding Artists
Collective, says this is the second ad-
vertising job he’s gotten as a result
of photographing weddings. “I don’t
really go into weddings with the
mind-set that I’m going to make a
friend, but it’s worked out that way a
few times, which has been cool.”
year Goleman will have shot 12 subjects. The third vid-
eo, an interview with comedian and writer Nick Thune
which Goleman recorded in early April, shows how their
approach has become “a lot more loose and free form.”
LOGISTICS: Goleman works with an assistant, and a
sound person and a production assistant he hires locally.
The sound people he hires typically use both a wireless lavalier, which the subject wears, and a boom mic for backup. A groomer and a producer were also on all the shoots.
The day before each shoot, Goleman arrives on location—usually in the subject’s home—to look around. “I
would come up with four places, interesting places, to
shoot, and then try to work the video around the stills,”
he says. To plan his video shooting, he would first decide where to place the subject while he asked a handful of questions Larson had given him. Over the course
of the day, he would shoot B-roll footage while following his subject.
When he began photographing Thune in his home in
Los Angeles, Goleman asked the writer and comedian
a little about his daily routine. “He said, ‘Every day I go
to the dog park,’ so I said, ‘Let’s go.’” When Thune mentioned that he typically writes in his bed because it’s
quiet, Goleman recalls, “I said, ‘Can we do the interview
