Photographing a Twilight star

For many of the Twilight series’ avid fans, being within six feet of one of its actors would be a dream. Near the end of summer, Canada’s Michael De Sadeleer, a professional celebrity photographer, got the unique opportunity to photograph Daniel Cudmore, who is set to play Felix, a terrifying Volturi guard, in the most recent Twilight release New Moon.

The Cord had the chance to speak with De Sadeleer over the phone about his profession as well as the experience he had photographing an actor from one of the most anticipated films of the year.

In late summer, De Sadeleer was given the opportunity to shoot Cudmore, who is also known from the X-Men series as the character Colossus.

The shoot was done in Stanley Park just outside of downtown Vancouver, which is Cudmore’s home.

De Sadeleer told The Cord that “Daniel was very easy to work with and shoot.”

“We spent several hours walking around Stanley Park, near the beach and in several alley ways in downtown Vancouver trying to find the right locations to take some pictures.”

This technique is one De Sadeleer likes to use with many of the actors he shoots because he feels it allows the process to be relaxed and informal, allowing him to get the best possible results.

Throughout the shoot, De Sadeleer got to know a few things about Cudmore; for instance, “Daniel is 6’7” and is from British Columbia.

“He also has two brothers that play professional rugby for Canada, which Daniel also used to do.”

De Sadeleer went on to explain that Daniel described being on the New Moon set as “a lot of fun and was like rehearsing with a family, because everyone got along really well.”

De Sadeleer said that Cudmore explained that New Moon is a crazy phenomenon and that the fans are amazing, especially the ones over in Europe who were the most “enthusiastic.”

According to De Sadeleer, Cudmore said, “When they shot some of the film over in Italy, there were thousands of girls showing up everywhere screaming and wanting to get close to them on set.”

He also told De Sadeleer about how there were New Moon tours all over the United States that were very expensive and showed some of the places that New Moon scenes were filmed.

Currently, De Sadeleer lives part-time in Vancouver and Toronto, and, according to him, he was not affected much by the hoards of New Moon fans that travelled there to witness the filming of the movie over spring and summer because he is so used to large movies being filmed in Vancouver.

“You just get used to it,” he said.

De Sadeleer’s photos of Cudmore were featured in the June 26 US Weekly special edition magazine spread about the upcoming New Moon release.

Praised for his unique approach to the profession, London-born De Sadeleer moved to Toronto in his youth where his interest in photography became strongest in high school.

De Sadeleer explains that he took many photos of the sports teams and the theatre group he was part of.

“I learned about the real film aspect from the dark room when editing my photos,” said De Sadeleer.

While he travelled extensively around Europe in his youth, it was when he was older that he started to develop his own style of photography by taking pictures of landscapes and people during his travels.

Interestingly, De Sadeleer was even an actor for several years.

After doing some television episodes and commercials, he turned his hobby of photography into a career, which began with taking photos of his friends who were actors.

“I was able to capture them for who they really were and their agents liked that,” explained De Sadeleer.

The first actor-friend he took pictures of was Dean McDermott (Tori Spelling’s husband, known from the reality show Tori and Dean: Inn Love in LA).

Michael has had the opportunity to shoot many other friends and renowned actors such as Alex Carter from CSI, Cynthia Dale from Street Legal and Andrea Roth from Rescue Me.