The female photographer on the front line of red carpet events
In amongst the depressingly short days and increasingly tight purse strings of January and February lies one solid beacon of hope: the glitz and glamour of award season. From Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s tactile reunion to the spine-tinglingly beautiful dresses, via the potential for envelope-swapping drama. There is no better cure for winter blues.
But what’s it actually like to be amongst the live action, up tangibly close and incredibly personal with the stars? We can only watch from afar but Chelsea Lauren knows. She is a seasoned celebrity photographer, who’s snapped at every event from the GRAMMYs to the SAG Awards, and formed real celebrity friendships along the way.
“I actually wanted to be a plastic surgeon, before majoring in communications,” Chelsea tells Cosmopolitan UK. “Photography was a hobby that turned into a career after I was offered a chance opportunity a decade ago.” She’s been working for Shutterstock – an agency who sell photographs to companies for publication – for the past seven years. “Now I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Chelsea’s day-to-day work varies depending on the job her Assignment Editor gives her - maybe it’ll be a film premiere, or a launch party. During award season, she’s unsurprisingly very busy, but she usually works five or six events a week. “Typically, I try to get there an hour before the red carpet starts, with my equipment in a small suitcase. You have to go through security, are shown to your designated spot to set up, and survey your surroundings. I’ll take a couple of test shots and then wait for the fun to begin.” Which is to say, the celebs to arrive.
“Hilariously, at my first ever job, I wore heels. I thought that was what you were supposed to do - I was tottering around like a giraffe! I was barefoot within the hour, after realising how casual other photographers were. You’re there to work, not look good.”
Thanks to doing “over a thousand red carpets since then,” Chelsea doesn’t feel intimidated by celebs. “The only time I’ve ever been star-struck was with Tom Cruise, when I was photographing him with the Rock Of Ages cast at the Pantages Theatre in LA. He stuck around for loads of pictures, and when I was thanking him for his time at the end, he reached through a minder’s arm and said, ‘No, no, thank you. What’s your name again? Thank you so much, Chelsea.’”
Someone else who has a good rep amongst photographers, Chelsea says, is Tom Hanks. “He’s just so funny. I was shooting him with six other photographers once at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and he made sure he posed specifically for every one of us, making sure we all got the shots we needed. He said, ‘I’m going to look directly at all of your cameras in order. OK, let’s go number one’ and then he posed, and was like, ‘OK, number two’. He’s universally known for being the nicest of the nice.”
Not all shoots are that easy, though - Chelsea often finds herself fighting against a barrage of other photographers, all sharpening their elbows to get the best shot. “You’re separated into pens during a red carpet,” she explains. Typically, these pens can be crammed and are often outside, regardless of the weather conditions. Photographers and media will line up against a metal barrier, or behind a rope, with the red carpet in front of them.
“The celebrity’s publicist will then guide them along so everyone gets a chance. There are a handful of photographers who don’t play ball, and start yelling when it isn’t their turn so they can get more shots. It can be chaos - photographers who have already got their photos jumping in front of your lens, or screaming at the talent to look back at them. You just have to be calm and wait your turn – I never get involved in the drama.”
It’s partly because of the hectic nature of red carpets that Chelsea’s favourite events to photograph are parties. “I like roaming inside and being able to get the talent when they look more natural. I’m very social with celebs now, as well as their publicists, makeup artists and stylists, and that definitely helps me get more intimate shots. That’s how I recently got such good pictures of Billie Eilish at a pre-GRAMMYs party - her publicist Alexandra Baker is wonderful, and trusts me to capture the moment authentically.
“Also, what’s helped me is to always think of the celebs as actual people. Yes they might be extremely talented, or extremely beautiful, or both, but they’re just people that happen to be very well-known. If you treat them like humans and not ATM machines, they recognise that and you start to form a bond. There have been times when someone has had a wardrobe malfunction, and I’ll physically block the other photographers to say, ‘Hey, you need to pull that top over a little bit’, whereas other people just want the photo they can make the most money off.
“I had a moment with a very famous actor two years ago at a pre-Oscars party. Someone had spilled red wine over his suit, and as I walked into the venue, I could see him and a woman desperately trying to get the stain out. For some reason I had a stain remover in my bag, so we all tried to remove it together. Two days later at the Oscars, I saw him on the carpet - he pulled me aside to get all the photos I could ever want.”
Even moments like these don’t come out top of Chelsea’s favourite memories. “One that comes to mind is when I was shooting at producer Clive Davis’s pre-GRAMMYS party one year, and Janet Jackson came over to me with Alexander Wang and said, ‘Oh my god, I love your shoes!’ My best friend loves her, so I texted her straight away. The job is full of little moments like that - I shot Beyonce at The Lion King premiere and got this amazing photo of her on the red carpet. It’s the dream photo - another photographer’s flash hit one of the sparkles on her dress just as I was snapping, and she looks incredible.”
There have been some less enjoyable moments too, though. “I was photographing at a Travis Scott gig on the opening night of a new venue, and when I got home I realised I only had one of the two memory cards I’d started the night with. It was my worst nightmare - I went back to the venue to root through the trash. It never turned up.
"Another time, I lost a wallet of memory cards that had portraits of Steve Aoki, Travis Parker and Iggy Azalea on, right before she blew up. I was freelance at the time, so the cost of the cards (around $350) paired with the fact the portraits could have probably paid my rent six times over at the time, was devastating. Obviously these happenings will always be heart-wrenching, but it’s more bearable at the level I’m at now – I’m not having to upload a photo straightaway in the hope of making a sale.”
But those moments are few and far between. “I try to consciously and regularly remind myself that although it can be stressful and everyone can complain, I really do have the dream job. I’ve got to know some of the most talented people in the world, and it’s like, man, how many people on this earth would lose a limb to be in the vicinity of these humans?”
You got that right.
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