EMILY SHUR ON PHOTOGRAPHING KALEY CUOCO FOR PRICELINE

Emily photographed Priceline brand ambassador Kaley Cuoco, who leapt from Big Bang Theory fame into fresh stardom (and Emmy noms) on HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, for a new campaign touting the brand’s travel deals.

“Viewers can tap on interactive icons in the campaign’s eight digital ads to access the hidden $5 million in travel savings Priceline is offering,” reports Adweek.

The shoot took place on location, alongside the crew filming the accompanying TV commercial, but as Emily explains, “it was a best-case scenario in that we were able to have our own dedicated, separate space for stills.”

She and her team set up a full-length seamless for the character portraits, as well as all of the shots with Cuoco. Within that set, they created two lighting variations.

“One was specifically for the key visual group shot with the sunny beach background,” says Emily. “I was able to collaborate with the agency on picking that background shot ahead of time so we knew where the portraits would live in the end. The look we were going for was a snappy, kind of tongue-in-cheek ‘homage’ to classic sitcom key art. 

“The second lighting variation,” she continues, “was a softer head-to-toe look where we captured the actors working through more active poses, many with props related to their characters from TVC.”

Emily’s team also set up a smaller tabletop seamless, off to the side, where they shot still lifes of roughly 40 different props that appeared in the commercials. 

“The objects were to become clickable links within the digital portion of the campaign, so it was really all about the thing itself,” she notes. “But we didn’t want to just shoot them on gray or white. Instead, we used the Priceline blue as the background base color and created a magenta/purple/blue gradient color with LEDs to give the background more flair.”