Enter Sandman

On celebrity shoots, you never know what you're going to get. But this recent session with Sandman author Neil Gaiman was everything I could have asked for.

The biggest danger was that the shoot would breaking down into a conversation, with the photography coming to a grinding halt. Our connection was easy and immediate (featured topics included his first book, on Duran Duran, and his awkward dinner with Lou Reed).

A few minutes in I complimented him on his poses and gestures, as he was giving me a bit of a performance, with dramatic gestures and expressions. He told me it wasn't always this way.

He said, "One time my wife was on a set and I saw that I was just standing around in front of the camera. She said, 'No, no, no, you're making the photographer work too hard. You have to move around, do different poses - mix it up. The more variety they have the better the pictures will be.'"

If only all of my subjects were married to musician and performance artist Amanda Palmer!