When winners, presenters and other Emmy-night notables sat for photographer Steve Schofield at the 67th Awards, he often had only a minute to get his shot.

Not just any shot, mind you, but an official Emmy portrait at the backstage photo lounge, this year sponsored by Chase Sapphire Preferred.

The 2015 studio had a new shooter in Steve — a cheerful, modest Brit who now lives in L.A. while some of his works remain in London, hanging in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery. New also was the Emmy studio look: four sets in hues of black, blue, white and gold, with lush props and varied lighting.

The sets, Steve explains, were intended as almost small theater spaces, which his subjects — most of them actors — could use as they would any creative space.

“I’ve always enjoyed photographing actors,” he says. “There’s a collaboration that happens when we make the photograph together. They bring something to the table that’s unique, and allowing them to flourish in front of the camera, even if I only have them for a minute  — which was the case for many of them — it goes a great way toward producing a more interesting portrait.”

How his subjects react to the space and to Steve himself — and how he in turns reacts to their reaction — form the substance of the image, one that might be shot in a fraction of a second.

“If they have just won an award, they might be feeling a euphoria,” he notes. “The adrenaline has kicked in, and it’s almost as if they aren’t reacting to you or anyone else in the room. Other times there can be a genuine moment where you have that person connect emotionally.”

As was the case with Jon Hamm, among others. When he posed for Steve, the actor had just captured his Emmy as lead actor in a drama series for the last season of Mad Men, after seven consecutive nominations.

“They make a slight movement or gesture,” Steve explains, “and you think to yourself, ‘That’s it — we’ve got it. That’s the image that tells the story.”