05/15/2026
Flashback to a shoot from 2010 for the with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, two young upstarts who had recently created , years before it was acquired by Apple. Like many newspaper assignments, this one came on short notice, as in that same morning. At first I was to shoot Iovine alone, but shortly after getting the initial call I was updated that Dre would be joining him. As this was a newspaper assignment, I had no budget for an assistant, so woke up my girlfriend, now my wife, saying “Hey, want to go meet Dr. Dre?” Thankfully, she obliged. Upon arriving at in Santa Monica we scouted Jimmy’s office and then decided on shooting in an in-house nightclub they had across the street. It was an obvious choice, with carpeted walls and a neon sign that lit up only when Dre was in the dj booth. The shoot went great and both were easy going and patient as we tweaked the lights to avoid reflections in the framed poster. On the drive home I was on cloud nine, having only been in LA for a year and a half and not having many celebrity shoots under my belt. And then my car broke down. Such is the life.
