Photographer Jay Silverman recently reached a milestone: 5,000 shoots during his career.
The chief executive at Jay Silverman Productions in Hollywood, Silverman, 57, started when he was 17 years old when he photographed the TV show “Kung Fu” for public relations and other promotions. His 5,000th job was a photo shoot with football star Aaron Rodgers for a Pizza Hut commercial that will debut next week.
That means he’s averaged 2.4 assignments a week for the past 40 years. However, he often completes several assignments in a day and then spends time prepping for the next gigs.
He prides himself on speed. In the 1980s, he photographed all the casts for ABC’s fall lineup in a single day. He once photographed Michael Jordan for two billboards, three online videos, a TV commercial and a magazine campaign – all in two hours so the basketball star could make his tee time.
“When Michael Jordan has an appointment on the golf course, he can’t miss it,” Silverman said. “My gift is working with celebrities and handling the workload. Not many people do all that.”
His most memorable shoot starred Ray Charles and involved 38 different TV and print ads for multistate lottery Powerball. The job was scheduled for Sept. 11, 2001. Charles was stranded in Dallas after terrorist attacks paralyzed the nation’s air travel, but he convinced the Federal Aviation Administration to let him fly the next day to Los Angeles International Airport in a small private plane.
One of the commercials was already planned to feature Charles singing “God Bless America,” but the sentiment was especially moving at the time.
John Mathus, vice president of ad agency Ansira in St. Louis, often calls on Silverman’s services.
“He works very quickly because he understands what he’s doing at every step,” Mathus said.
Although there’s no official scorekeeper for photography shoots, 5,000 assignments is a lot for a celebrity photographer. Elizabeth Poje, a photography agent in Venice, said it’s rare for a professional shooter to last as long as Silverman.
“He started when there was so much work back in the 1980s, and has survived the ups and downs of Hollywood and the advertising business,” she said.
Silverman Productions has five full-time employees, but hires more than 50 freelance set designers, makeup artists and other technicians when needed. Budgets for Silverman projects range from $20,000 to several million dollars, not including celebrity salaries.
He hadn’t noticed that the Pizza Hut shoot was his 5,000th.
“I would have celebrated,” he said. “I didn’t realize it until my bookkeeper looked at the job number on the invoice and it hit 5,000.”
– Joel Russell
