I wish I was Irving Penn
If you ever saw what I wear, its usually pretty baggy clothing. Mostly because I’m hanging off a crane, or need to store food or a lens in a pocket as I’m running to the aide of some celebrity photographer that I’m assisting, or if I’m shooting myself. T shirts are around Large. Pants are more baggier than skinny around my thighs. Mostly because my lower body is thicker due to years of being on a rowing team, and then moving up to cycling. Both of which I never get to do anymore. So unlike most dudes, I have a butt that makes it hard to wear fashionable clothes, comfortably. I’m often shooting something either in motion or photo, and I love the wardrobe some of the guys are rocking which is completely counter to what I’m at liberty to purchase.
All week long we were re-shooting scenes from Chinatown,for the exhibit at the REDCAT in LA and suit after suit, after suit was amazing. The thing about being a cinematographer, is that I’m constantly looking at the action, and shooting the motion, and then choreographing the camera moves, and lighting cues, with my Gaffer Kirk, or with talent or with my assistant cameramen. But there is a still photographer inside that is also angling for the free shots of actors and actresses still in wardrobe. And its usually while we are shooting that I see something, an angle, a pose, that someone does naturally, and I’ll say “don’t move,” and I’ll run to get my camera and steal a shot.
This was the 2nd or 3rd day of filming. They were long, grueling days, and we had a moment for lunch, and a makeup change. Clayton was at the lunch area catching up on emails, and immediately when I saw the way the light hit that room, I immediately thought…Hmmm…this is Irving Penn ish..
Clayton and I had already interacted because I made comments on the three piece suit and in blocking since we had to match the lines, ”Forget Jake, its Chinatown.” If you watch in the original, the guy who says it turns completely back towards camera and stacks his face to the camera left of Jack Nicholson, and I basically lined him to do that, all the while thinking, I’m going to take a picture of that freaking guy with that freaking suit. He had a perfect face character wise for the part, and when he put on his glasses, and let the suit do its job, Clayton took you there into that nostalgic world. I saw it on the motion picture camera, and I knew it would work in the 6x6 format of the Hasselblad, even more so.
So when all of that lined up during a “lunch” break. I ran and got the camera after seeing him coincidently under some of the best natural light I’ve seen enter a room in a long long time. Had him move off center, and look off center, and it added to the Esquire mood mixed with Hollywood Nostalgia, and with such a great looking subject who can rock all those elements and give it the character and the mood, I fired this shot, confident. And it was exactly what I needed for “lunch” or “break” because I was actively creating something of my own versus copying shot for shot the Polanski film.
Downtown Los Angeles, CA
Hasselblad 500C/M 80mm Zeiss Planar Ilford Delta 100
