Unit Set Photography: Myles Aronowitz & Cara Howe

Photography has plenty of different specialty areas—portraits, sports, fashion, food, still life—to name just a few. In today’s show we’re going to investigate a specialty that involves all these subjects, while calling for a photographer who is technically precise, emotionally intuitive, and practically invisible, all at once.

Above Photograph © Myles Aronowitz

It’s a corner of the industry people rarely consider, but one that holds massive influence over our cultural lives. This is the domain of the Unit Set Photographer: the person responsible for the pictures that sell a film or a show before anyone else has seen a frame of it.

During a spirited conversation with photographers Myles Aronowitz and Cara Howe, we pull back the curtain on what it really feels like to toil on set, build trust with talent, and come away with great images under conditions that are rarely in your favor.

In addition to learning the origin stories to their intense, multifaceted careers, we distinguish between work on feature films and tv productions, reveal the secret superpowers of stealth and stillness essential for success on set, describe how to build alliances across an film entire crew, and talk about value of the global shutter to combat banding with LED lights.

Or, as Myles sums things up in a nutshell, “One of the great things about being a still photographer on set is you're basically observing everything. I think of it as a learning experience every day.”

Guests: Myles Aronowitz & Cara Howe

Episode Timeline

• 3:26: Defining the role of a unit set photographer and how it fits into a larger film or tv production.

• 8:24: How Myles first got into photographing stills for movie sets in the analog days.

• 11:22: Cara’s career path to working on films, joining the union, and becoming a unit set photographer.

• 16:54: Digging deeper into the multifaced role of still photographer on movie sets.

• 20:50: Does your work on a film set affect how you experience the finished production?

• 22:28: Making distinctions between work on a feature film set vs a tv production.

• 35:40: The importance of relationships with other crew members, from the assistant director to the lighting crew to the sound department.

• 40:35: Episode Break

• 41:22: The sound blimp days of working with film and DSLRs before the switch to mirrorless.

• 52:37: The cameras and lenses Myles & Cara work with on set.

• 57:12: Booking gigs, work schedules & downtime between jobs in both feature films and tv productions.

• 1:00:03: Post-production and turn-around time for delivering files.

• 1:02:41: Pathways for joining the Cinematographers Guild—IATSE Local 600.

• 1:05:53: Myles’s post-retirement life and the importance of personal work as part of his vision.

• 1:10:28: Cara’s personal projects and connections to the Hudson Valley art community.

Guest Bios

Myles Aronowitz is a filmmaker, visual artist, and longtime unit still photographer whose career bridges the worlds of cinema and fine art. For more than 40 years, he worked behind the scenes on over 100 feature films and television series, creating iconic images used in a wide range of movie posters and publicity campaigns. His portraits of actors, artists, poets, musicians, and writers have also been published worldwide.

As the son of a legendary 1960s music columnist, Myles was introduced to the arts at an early age, and grew up among the great poets, musicians, artists, and filmmakers his father chronicled in the press.

In recent years, Myles has focused increasingly on his own filmmaking and visual projects that combine photography, drawing, and music, which often emerge through collaborations with other artists and musicians to explore themes of creativity, nature, and storytelling.

Cara Howe grew up on Long Island and is now based between New York City and the Hudson Valley. Her interest in photography began at age eight when she was given her first camera. She earned a degree in television production at Boston’s Emerson College, and then furthered her studies in commercial and advertising photography at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta. After working steadily in film for several years, Cara returned to photography, where she became known for evocative and dynamic visual storytelling. The co-founder and former co-owner of Brooklynphoto Studio, LTD. and Brooklynphoto's One Night Only Art Series, Cara currently works primarily as a set photographer in film and television productions. She is a member of the International Cinematographer's Guild / IATSE local 600, NYWIFT, and can be spotted on movie set locations around the New York metropolitan area and beyond.

Host: Derek Fahsbender 
Senior Creative Producer: Jill Waterman 
Recording Engineer: Mike Weinstein 
Audio Editing: Andrew Swift, Kevin Carrillo 
Executive Producer: Dana Glidden