This is one of my favorite portraits ever, Jodi Foster, at Smashbox Studios, assigned by the great @kathleenclarkphoto at Los Angeles Magazine. I knew I had the cover already and the inside image of Jodi with one of her closest collaborators, her script supervisor, Diane Dreyer (see following images). Sometimes on shoots if there’s time, I’ll grab some 4 x 5 images for myself. My camera is an old Crown Graphic that I have on a tripod, it’s all a bit rickety, but somehow the edge of disaster has often been where my best images have been found, a dangerously slow shutter speeds, in fluky flight. Occasionally, these kind of images have been published and sometimes not, but maybe because of that, I feel like I can be a little bit more rough and ready. This is Jodi on the floor, just inside the open garage doors at Smashbox in daylight only. By the look of her eyes, I’m bouncing some silver cards and white fill in there as well. It’s a far from perfect photo, I managed to amputate a couple of her fingers by not noticing how her hand was, it’s not perfectly sharp. But because of the actress she is, someone that has been in front of the camera’s lens since she was 5 years old, I’ve never photographed anyone that was so completely available to the process, and so completely present. To look through the lens at her was something I’ll never forget.
If you’re interested in how these kinds of images happen, I have workshops coming up for @la_centerofphoto and @santafeworkshops. Please have a look at the links in my bio.
A small, good thing.
I’ve just finished a year of volunteering, every Tuesday morning at the LA downtown library, teaching English conversation as part of their Literacy program. Mostly we used the Oxford Picture Dictionary, though that often led to discussions about words and their meanings. It’s amazing how far the conversation would travel. Sometimes, yesterday, communicating as best we could, we talked about the last time we were really happy, ate donuts I’d brought from the 7-Eleven, drank sparking apple juice and laughed together.
I’m going to take a break from it and get into other things I need to, but I will really miss my group. Regulars who show up every week, Emiko and Pedro, others I saw a lot, others just once or a few times. It was my own, small act of solidarity with the kind of people the Trump administration has done so much to threaten and expel. But in that room in the Literacy Center we didn’t talk much about that, I only saw good, hard working people who were not asking for special favor. They were bravely doing their best to improve their lives and their language in a place where they would love to stay.
Special thanks to my friend Cyn Solloa who does so much to make the Adult Literacy program happen @lapubliclibrary ❤️
I’ve always loved to photograph people in cars. There’s the romance of cars, of road trips, of private conversations and secrets shared. Someone once described a long talk in a car to me, eyes on the road ahead, two people locked in space, as a “rolling confessional”. And of course for many of us, there’s memories of adolescent love in the only private space available to us.
First car, first sex, first accident, first ticket, first journey across a state border. Tracy and I, bringing three days old baby Will home from hospital, driving so slowly through Griffith Park.
When I look back through my work, and my life, the car is a great through line of art and heart and adventure.
❤️ to all here @misslloren @willsoutham @sw162ty @julia_sublime @mamadish @finn_dish @harperdish @tssalter @keithurban @theoliviajordan
Faces, I can’t get enough of ‘em! Here’s the great American singer songwriter, @willhoge in Nashville, from somewhere way back along the road. Hey Will, happy Monday to all here! ❤️
I was so lucky to see Philip Seymour Hoffman, Andrew Garfield and Linda Edmond in Mike Nichols’s revival of Death of a Salesman on Broadway, in 2012, two years before both Hoffman and Nichols passed away.
During the plays run, Mike Nichols said in an interview something I’ve always remembered, “We have Willy Loman; everywhere we look we see, Willy Loman. We are Willy Loman. We’re on Facebook; we need to be known; we’re selling all the time.” This idea of each of us being our own brand on social media, to both productive and destructive ends, has only intensified since then.
But what if the person we’re selling is not actually us? I’ve been thinking about these portraits I took in Las Vegas for a British magazine in 1995, of celebrity impersonators. They were all so invested in their performances, and all so good at what they did. Looking at the images again, I find myself moved by each of their commitments to creating their illusion. Heidi Thompson as Cher was especially amazing because at the Legends show, at the Imperial Palace and Casino, she sang live in a perfect version of the original. I read someone say she sounded more like Cher than Cher. The guys were all part of Frank Marino’s An Evening at La Cage show at the Riviera, where he’d signed a three month contract for a show that ran for 25 years.
In order of appearance,
1. Marilyn (I’m still trying to locate this performers name, if anyone can help me out)
2. Heidi Thompson as Cher @heidiascher
3. Carl Davidson as Madonna
4. Frank Marino as Joan Rivers @thequeenofvegas
5. Marvin Nathan as “Fat Cher”
Hollywood represents! So good to see and hear the people’s voice today at the No Kings protest! America is not Trump and Trump must go! 🗑️!!!
@melissasamuels08 @tsondern 🇺🇸
(Sound on for Lou Reed’s epic Star Spangled Banner!)
Great to see you out there @kevrobertsondp @gretchenlieberum !
Hey Friends, I’ve just posted my 6th entry to Substack, one from the ❤️. Please check it out, it’s free!
I was going to create a post this morning, about how much I love shooting against wood backgrounds, and then I remembered this image. Sometime recently I also saw this line, “the conversation you’re so reluctant to have may be the most important one”. I’ve been circling this because this guy means so much to me, and I wanted to good job of it. But I’ve got to leave for my volunteer gig at the downtown library in an hour, and a deadline may be much better than all the time in the world.
I met Grant Matthews when he was not that long arrived in Sydney from Adelaide. He’d worked photographing the theater there, with people he would introduce me to, who would later become important to me too, Rodney Fisher, and @helmutbakaitis . Even this biography stuff is dragging my feet a bit. What I want to say is Grant made my life as a photographer possible. Which actually means he made my life possible. The photographers I know will understand this, we are our work, the line between photography and who we are doesn’t really exist. Grant will be reading this, and I think he knows how I feel about him, but I’ll speak to him directly.
(Continued in comments)
