This picture was made in New York City in 2017, and it's the second shot of Vivienne from 2017 that has been a Head On Semi-finalist image. The other was a more candid shot of a visibly tired Vivienne taken in Lyon, France, toward the end of a month of travel and photography. I love these pictures as I feel that both of them make real statements about the place, the time, and subject(s) being photographed. In both pictures one of the subjects is the location, the other is Vivienne and in each picture the location and Viv are photographed, photographically, very differently.
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| Vivienne, Cocktail Bar NYC 2017 for White Caviar Life. |
These pictures are grounded in my beginnings shooting film as a photographer, and learning to see 'photographically' the desired end result. Where I had to learn to see that end result in my minds eye before having taken the picture. It's very much the opposite of digital photography. I had to have a picture in my head, now the picture appears instantaneously on the back of the camera (or tethered, on a computer screen), but only after the shutter has been pressed. I was talking to a colleague yesterday and I made a statement about this picture to him, which I immediately jotted down before I forgot! These days [photographers] 'they think with what they see, not with what could be'. If I had done that with the picture of Vivienne in the hotel bar I would have had a dark moody picture with a quirky faux animal print decor.
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| The dark hotel bar - underexposed, no flash. |
So what did I do to shape these pictures to 'what they could be'? Lets stick with the cocktail bar shot first. Like most bars and nightclubs that are not a windowed shopfront, even with the lights on, they are dark. Dark for the eyes and very dark for the camera. As I had little by way of lighting equipment, that meant accepting the dark, or of doing something else. Fortunately, what I saw in the bar was an opportunity to do a paparazzi nightclub - Studio 54 - someone famous, who is she? Kind of thing, well lit, or, loudly lit with direct flash like a paparazzi shot so I could emphasize the eccentric decor while borrowing the instant fame meme through the use of strong flash. Above is what the room looks like (camera set for flash) without the additional lighting. Yes its way underexposed due to a flash not firing, but it does show how little available room light there was. As the old photographers joke goes - Available light? Not available... Camera Nikon D810, 50mm f1,8 at f2 125th ISO 200. I needed to hand hold the camera, as I was using the tripod to support the reflector so I could bounce the on-camera flash into it, so I would get that direct flash paparazzi look - but softer and importantly, wider. My back was also against the bar, half squatting in this long but very narrow room. I rearranged the tables to create the foreground shapes, and had lot of work to do keeping the camera straight, the flash going into the not very well supported reflector while directing my sitter, Viv, into a Grand NY Dame pose, unexpectedly confronted by the camera! That is one of the things I love about photography, fashion photography in particular, the make-believe, which now is called story telling though for me they are not quite the same thing. So to my mind, this is a pure fashion shot and not a portrait at all. For years I would never have submitted a fashion picture to a portrait competition. But then, for so many years I kept looking at portrait shows that had more than a few 'fashion' shots in them and so eventually I decided, that a picture like this, was fine to submit. Though having said that. It is also a picture of Vivienne and I, a portrait of what we do - so I guess it's a portrait too after all.
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| The Lyon hotel room as prepared for a lifestyle shot. |
And what about the portrait from Lyon? The funny thing for me is that when I look at this picture, I think it's taken after we made the trip from the Château in Bagnols where we had been staying. That I've taken this picture after we had checked in and loosened up a bit. Changing hotels is often a stress filled day. But that is not the case at all. The picture was made a few days later, Day 3 in Lyon, at the end of a 'lifestyle' shot Viv wanted to do in the hotel room for her website White Caviar Life. Scrolling through the image folder I can see that we did two looks, one a little black dress with her sitting on the bed, then the towelling robe, against the curtains. After an hour and a quarter of working through these themes it was declared 'a wrap' and at that point Vivienne collapsed into the armchair. At last I saw a picture that I wanted to make, Eve Arnold, Marilyn Monroe, on-set-or, is it Norma Jean? Will the real Vivienne please 'let your head role to the side a bit...' So what I brought to this shot was a template of stardom as seen through Magnum style reportage photography of old Hollywood. And black and white, it had to be black and white, of course.
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| Vivienne, hotel room Lyon, France 2017 (Head On Semi-finalist 2018). |
As I started out saying, they are very different pictures made using different approaches. The NY Bar shot is completely constructed from the beginning, and the image selected is one of the first 10 frames. The Lyon room shot is made by taking advantage of the situation at the end of a shoot where I could feel a magical image swimming in my head starting to form, and after a little direction I was able to capture in my camera. Thirteen fames, in under two minutes - after an hour and a quarter of shooting. We did two other shots on location in Lyon that day as well. Those are something special for another occasion. https://headon.org.au/
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