Alma means "soul" or "spirit" in Spanish. Alma is also the name the National Council of La Raza chose use to celebrate fair, accurate, and balanced portrayals of Latinos in the Anglo entertainment industry. This year, the Alma Awards were held at the Pasadena Civic Center in Pasadena, Calif. As part of the AOL Latino crew that was sent to cover them, my job was to shoot the red carpet and document the backstage scene, or in this case the atmosphere in and around the press room.
On the red carpet
Shooting the red carpet was pretty easy. All I had to do was stand inside the photo area and photograph the celebrities as they strolled by on their way to the theater. Positions for photo and video had been pre-assigned. At about 2:30 PM I took my position, at the very end of the line. This being my first red carpet experience I didn't think too much of this, until I noticed that the celebrities were much more animated and posed better for the photographers who were at the beginning of the line. By the time they got to me, they pretty much walked straight by to get to the theatre. It was amazing to hear all the other photographers scream at the top of their lungs in an attempt to get the celebrities to look in their direction! I soon realized that having the celebrity looking at you was key to making a good red carpet photo.
Roselyn Sanchez
Halfway through the afternoon, I noticed that some of the lesser known or upcoming celebrities had their assistants holding a piece of paper with their name on it -- a name card of sorts. I asked one of the assistants to pose with the name card, and it turned out to be one of my favorite photos!
Erika Martin
As soon as the red carpet ended, I made my way to the press room to work on the second part of my assignment, which was to document the scene backstage. The press room was the area were the celebrities pick up the real awards, pose with them, and sit down for interviews withthe media. Shooting this was a bit of a challenge, part of it because of the way this venue had been laid out. Instead of being inside the theatre, the press room was located in a building adjacent to it. So only the celebrities who had won awards would be coming over, and most of the time they did one-by-one.
Celebrities trickled in slowly and left as soon as they had done their thing. My assumptions of getting candid photos of celebrities hanging out, mingling with each other, were pretty much dashed by then. I had to come up with an alternate plan. AOL photo editor Rochelle Ochs, who was organizing things that day, suggested I walk around a bit to see if there was anything happening outside. So at times feeling like a paparazzi, I patrolled the inside and outside of both buildings looking for anything that would make an interesting photo -- even running after celebs as they walked from one building to the next.
Adriana Barraza
Mexican actress Adriana Barraza was the first one to enter the press room. I photographed her as she recorded sound bites for the NCLR. A little after that I noticed veteran actor Edward James Olmos walking back to the theatre with this two awards. I ran after him and asked to shoot a few frames to which he replied, "Make it fast." As the evening progressed more celebrities came by. Actress Jessica Alba, director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu and one very pregnant Salma Hayek, who was mobbed by the media the instant she came into the press room. I was lucky enough to be in standing where she was coming in and got some good close up shots of her.
Edward JamesOlmos
Salma Hayek
Overall it was a good learning experience, one I hope to put to practice on my next red carpet assignment. Check out all the photos from AOL Latino's coverage of the Alma Awards, 2007. Have any favorite photos that you see? Let me know!
- Fredy Perojo
Tags: Alma Awards, Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos, Roselyn Sanchez, Adrianna Barraza
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