GEORGE PIMENTEL

FROM A-LIST ENCOUNTERS TO RED-CARPET MOMENTS GEORGE PIMENTEL THE CANADIAN CELEBRITY PHOTOGRAPHER LOOKS BACK ON HIGHLIGHTS OF HIS STARRY CAREER

- SARAH TRUMBLEY

Time flies when you’re having fun! It’s been 30 years since Canadian photographer George Pimentel snapped his first-ever celebrity picture – a black-and-white shot of Robert De Niro at the 1993 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). And it’s still his favourite to date.

“I literally knew nothing about the business at the time,” he tells Hello! Canada. “I was working in my father’s little studio, taking baptism and wedding photos. But then I heard that Robert De Niro was coming to town [for A Bronx Tale]. “All I wanted to do was grab a photo like a fan.”

He headed down to the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre with high hopes. When he got there, he couldn’t believe his luck: a security guard spotted George with his camera and thought he was part of the press line. “He waved me over and said, ‘Media has to stand here.’ So there I was with no badge, no nothing, standing with five photographers behind a little velvet rope…Then, sure enough, a silver limousine pulled up and De Niro walked out. He signed a couple of autographs, I took a snap and then he went in!”

It was at that moment, recalls George, that he said to himself, “This is what I want to do.”

THE GOOD OLD DAYS