Jeff Vespa (born 1970) is an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

, known as a co-founder of WireImage and the editor-at-large of LIFE.com.

Photography career

Vespa is most widely known for being one of nine co-founders of the photo agency website WireImage.com and its parent company MediaVast. He was also the original designer of WireImage's grid layout design. This design has now been adopted as the photo industry standard. In February 2007, MediaVast announced that it would sell to Getty Images for $207 million in an all-cash deal. Starting in 2003, Vespa has been the official photographer of the Sundance Film Festival and the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

since 2006. In 2004, he joined forces with Paris Hilton to create a ''New York Times'' bestselling book, ''Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose'', which was followed the next year with ''Your Heiress Diary: Confess it All to Me''. Vespa was the editor-at-large of the LIFE.com from March 2009 to February 2012. On October 2, 2012, Vespa launched Verge, a web magazine dedicated to discovering new talent. Vespa's first coffee table book, ''The Art of Discovery'', (Rizzoli) was released in Oct. 2014. It is a book of 100 portraits of celebrities along with quotes about an important moment of discovery in their lives.

Film career

Vespa attended the American Film Institute Graduate Program for Producing in 1993. He produced the

Lifetime Television Lifetime is an American basic cable channel that is part of Lifetime Entertainment Services, a subsidiary of A&E Networks, which is jointly owned by Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company. It features programming that is geared toward ...

movie ''Rituals'' in 1998, which starred Isaiah Washington and Regina King. More recently he produced, wrote and directed the 10-minute short film "Nosebleed", starring

David Arquette David Arquette (born September 8, 1971) is an American actor and former professional wrestler. He is best known for his role as Dewey Riley in the slasher film franchise ''Scream'', for which he won a Teen Choice Award and two Blockbuster En ...

, which could be seen on IFC and Channel 3 in France. The film had its premiere at the South By Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) in March 2008 and then screened at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival as a part of the Semaine de la Critique section. In 2018 Vespa directed his first feature, Paris Song, starring Abbie Cornish and Sanjar Madi.

Bibliography

* The Art of Discovery (2014) - Photographed by Jeff Vespa Rizzoli * Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose (2004) -

Paris Hilton Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American media personality, businesswoman, socialite, model, and entertainer. Born in New York City, and raised there and in Beverly Hills, California, she is a great-granddaughter of Conrad ...

and

Merle Ginsberg Merle Ginsberg is a fashion editor, blogger and television personality. She served as a judge on the first and second seasons of ''RuPaul's Drag Race'' (2009/2010) and also appeared on Bravo's ''Launch My Line'' (2009) as a contestant, finishing ...

, Photographs by Jeff Vespa Fireside * Your Heiress Diary: Confess It All to Me (2005) -

and

, Photographs by Jeff Vespa Fireside * Party Confidential (2006) - Lara Shriftman and Elizabeth Harrison, Photographs by Jeff Vespa Bullfinch

Filmography

* Paris Song (2018) Director * Madame Psychosis Holds A Seance, directed by Rosson Crow (2015) Producer * Face In The Crowd, directed by Alex Prager (2013) Producer * Sellebrity, directed by Kevin Mazur (2012) Producer * La Petite Mort, directed by Alex Prager (2012) Producer * Despair, directed by Alex Prager (2010) Producer * Children of the Spider (2010) Producer, Writer and Director * Nosebleed (2008) Producer, Writer and Director * Rituals (1998) Producer * Tendrils (1996) Producer

Exhibits

* wünderarts Amherst, MA, 2008 - American Dream, Two Person Show * Flinn Gallery Greenwich, CT, 2008 - Food...Glorious Food, Group Show * Gallery at LoFi, LA, 2006 - Eat Me! Yummy New Photographs * LAXART, LA, 2006 - One Shot: 100x100, Group Show * Rush Arts Gallery, NY, 2006 - God Complex: Images Of Power, Group Show * Traction 811, LA, 2004 - Hollywood Graffiti

References

Sources

* https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/rambling-reporter/wireimage-founder-make-directorial-debut-920067 * https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/wireimage-founder-jeff-vespa-launches-753128 * https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/gallery/celebrity-photographer-jeff-vespa-debuts-741073/1-shailene-woodley * https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cannes_film_festival_2008/news/1728420/ * http://www.photoinduced.com/archives/819 * http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007/09/wireimages-jeff.html?query=%22jeff+vespa%22 * http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=1&pid=501751 * http://www.imaginginfo.com/article/article.jsp?id=1314 * http://www.abouttheimage.com/2006/12/wireimage_delta_air_lines_operating_celebrity_portrait_studio_at_sundance_film_festival.html * https://www.variety.com/article/VR1117955640.html?categoryid=2178&cs=1 * http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30D10F9385B0C768CDDA80994DE404482