Ang Lee

Ang Lee, Toronto, Sept. 7, 2007

THIS SHOOT WAS MY SECOND ATTEMPT AT GETTING A PORTRAIT OF ANG LEE. A decade previous, back when I worked at NOW magazine, a request for a shoot with the director had been denied at the last minute, and I had felt frustrated ever since. I had been a big fan of Ang Lee since his Austen movie adaptation Sense & Sensibility had been a breakout hit, and had proved that he was more than just a director of particularly Chinese stories.

Since then, The Ice Storm and Ride With The Devil had confirmed his remarkable versatility, and made me an even bigger fan. There aren't a lot of masterful directors working today, but I'd put Lee among their small number, even though I still think his Oscar nominations (with two wins out of three) are for the wrong pictures.

Ang Lee, Toronto, Sept. 7, 2007

By 2007 I'd figured out how to use the very dim, peculiar light in the rooms at the Hotel Intercontinental on Bloor. The extreme drop off into shadow and necessity of using the adjacent walls of the very small, dark rooms pushed my style even further away from the Penn-inspired work I'd done for NOW in the '90s.

These shots are probably as perfect an example of whatever typifies my "hotel room" style as I'll find in all the work I did for the free daily, and the fact that they're really just small variations on a single pose underlines the unvarying conditions of those shoots: They were usually done under intense pressure, and often in less than a minute.

Lee was in Toronto promoting Lust, Caution, one of his periodic returns to Chinese stories that seem to be the only constant in a career that's included a superhero film (Hulk), his "gay cowboy movie" (Brokeback Mountain), a docudrama about the Woodstock Music Festival (Taking Woodstock) and a metaphysical fantasy film based on a book by an annoying Canadian (The Life of Pi). His Wiki bio teases future projects that include a sci-fi film and a movie about the 1975 Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier match that was supposed to be filmed in 3-D. It's a mark of Lee's talent that even his failures are more interesting than most blockbusters.

Rosamund Pike

Rosamund Pike, Toronto, Sept. 6. 2007

ROSAMUND PIKE BEGAN HER FILM CAREER AS A BOND GIRL, but unlike many actresses who got their big break with 007 (Daniela Bianchi, say, or Barbara Bach), she managed to thrive despite this distinction. 2007 turned out to be my Bond Girl year, as Pike shared the job in Die Another Day with Halle Berry, who also recovered nicely from the experience.

Pike was at the film festival to promote her starring role in Fugitive Pieces, a Canadian production based on an award-winning novel, directed by Jeremy Podeswa, a local-boy-made-good who went on to direct episodes of Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones. Pike would return to Canada a few years later for a role in a movie adaptation of Mordecai Richler's Barney's Version; her luck held and her career survived these excursions in the Canadian film industry.

Rosamund Pike, Toronto, Sept. 6. 2007

Pike is one of cinema's current great beauties, an English Rose with actual talent to back up her looks. Whenever I've been assigned to photograph one of these beauties, I feel an uncommon mix of dread and relief. Relief because I know that, as long as the light is good and the camera is focused, I'll like get a photo that most people will call "lovely." Dread because, well, that really isn't enough - beauty is a crutch, and it's hard to make a portrait that's both beautiful and interesting.

I tried to work around Pike's obvious beauty by holding her full center in the frame with the Intercontinental's very tapered light behind me. I gave her more direction than I usually do, but nothing really specific, hoping to catch a few of those "in between" moments that can't be posed. I'm still not sure if I was successful, but I do know with some certainty that I've rarely seen any photos of Pike that look like mine.

Rosamund Pike, Toronto, Sept. 6. 2007

Chris Tucker

Chris Tucker, Toronto, July 17, 2007

I SUPPOSE I PHOTOGRAPHED CHRIS TUCKER IN THE MIDDLE OF A CAREER CRISIS. Perhaps that's why he was a more than usually tense subject, even for a big celebrity. Or perhaps Tucker just isn't very relaxed in front of some random newspaper photographer for whom he's obliged to make faces. I'm pretty sure I might be the same way, were I in his situation.

Tucker was in Toronto promoting the third film in the Rush Hour series. He'd had his breakthrough alongside Ice Cube in Friday, then become a celebrity with three films in 1997 - Money Talks, Jackie Brown and The Fifth Element. The first Rush Hour film was a monster hit, and for the next decade he didn't seem to do much but team up with Jackie Chan for its sequels.

An actor with his status should have probably been working much more often, which is why I interpret this period in his career as a crisis, but knowing the kind of money a hit franchise can generate, perhaps he was simply thinking "Why work if you don't have to?" (But then again, Tucker would end up settling a $2.4 million dollar tax debt seven years after I took these photos, so maybe I was right.)

Chris Tucker, Toronto, July 19, 2007

Technically, this was like much of 2007 - "another shoot, another camera." This time I was testing out the Olympus E-510, which was a bit of a shift in their DSLR line, from a Kodak CCD digital sensor to a Panasonic MOD sensor. Whatever that means, the result was a much more smooth and detailed jpeg than I had been used to working with up till then. It also marked a shift to a fixed 3:4 sized sensor from the more film-like 2:3 aspect ratio.

It has to be noted that digital cameras during this period were evolving pretty quickly, increasing in resolution with each new generation and improving their sensitivity in low light and at higher ISO settings. By contrast, digital photo technology seems to have plateaued a decade later, with only minor improvements being offered with new models.

I was a bit wrongfooted by Tucker's very reserved attitude as a subject, so I just went into a default look for much of this shoot and had him adopt an old Hollywood screen idol kind of pose - the result of which is the frame at the top of this post. The shot at the bottom is the result of looking at the jpegs again for the first time in over a decade and finding something interesting in the unnaturally smooth colour rendition the camera produced; pumping a bit more warmth into the image in Photoshop gave it a quality that I associate more with digital photos than film, where even the most basic portrait (like this one) takes on a plastic, processed quality that lends the image a faint strangeness I wouldn't have seen through the viewfinder.

Iman

Iman, Toronto, May 30, 2007

SHE REALLY, REALLY TALKED A LOT. I mean, a lot; I actually felt sorry for David Bowie at a certain point. I imagined that he didn't get a word in edgewise at home, and had this image of him holding up his finger and saying "Yes, dear - " and "Of course, darling, but..." For the first time in my life I had a reason to imagine David Bowie's home life as an old radio comedy about a retiring, milquetoast husband and his firebrand wife.

Supermodel Iman was in Toronto promoting her role in the Canadian franchise of Project Runway, which was a huge hit at the time and the subject of much coverage in the free daily. I was, of course, more than a bit overawed to be photographing Mrs. Bowie - I can't lie about that - but the prospect of having one of the world's most famous models in front of my camera was also intimidating, and I wondered if it would be possible to get anything where Iman didn't merely slip into studied poses.

Iman, Toronto, May 30, 2007

The shot at the top is very nearly what I imagined I'd get, and much of the shoot - done on the terrace of a penthouse suite in one of the new boutique hotels downtown - is like this: Iman in autopilot, presenting the sort of face that I imagine Peter Beard or Patrick Demarchelier or Richard Avedon would have tolerated for a few frames before imploring her to pretend that she cared.

It was the shot I handed into the free daily, in any case, but going through the shoot years later I noticed the frame just above. There's a bit more happening here - perhaps a bit of impatience coming through: The seasoned model concerned that this rather silent newspaper photographer isn't up to capturing her best face. If I flatter myself, it reminds me of a still from an old Italian movie - Anna Magnani or Gina Lollabrigida building up to a fierce tirade at some hapless male co-star. In any case, my closest brush with fashion's upper echelon.

Harry Shearer

Harry Shearer, Toronto, April 25, 2007

THE FIRST TIME I SAW THIS IS SPINAL TAP, AT A DOWNTOWN MULTIPLEX, a long-haired metalhead dude ahead of me on the escalator after the movie turned to his equally long-haired metalhead buddy and said, "I don't get it - why make a movie about a band that sucks?" Even if the movie wasn't as seminal as it is, this anecdote alone would endear it to me for all time.

Similarly, Harry Shearer would be a legend to me even if he hadn't co-wrote the film and played bassist Derek Smalls. So I was a bit overawed when I got the assignment to do his portrait when he was in town, promoting either A Couple of White Chicks at the Hairdresser (unlikely, as I don't think it was ever released outside the U.S.) or The Simpsons Movie (more likely, though he might have been in town for some completely different reason.)

Harry Shearer, Toronto, April 25, 2007

The assignment was at a hotel I'd never shot in before - the Grand Hotel & Suites at Jarvis and Dundas East, which I remembered from when the building was the RCMP headquarters. We did the shoot in a meeting room on the main floor instead of one of the suites, which probably explains the chair - hyperbole in the form of furniture - and the generous shooting space, not to mention the dismal lighting, from overhead fixtures and pot lights.

The mixed lighting sources means that this shoot is nearly unprintable in colour, so I've rendered these frames in black and white. I've also played with the focus in processing, subtly with the bottom frame, more dramatically in the one at the top, to give the look of a very wide lens with a very, very narrow aperture, or a view camera with the focal plane shifted.

I had my doubts about even posting these photos until after I'd managed - with considerable effort - to correct the shortcomings of the original images. Which is another reason for me to be grateful for the digital revolution.

Giovanni Ribisi

Giovanni Ribisi, Toronto, March 21, 2007

YOU WANT IT DARKER? I must have wanted it darker on the day I photographed Halle Berry and Giovanni Ribisi at the Windsor Arms Hotel, judging by the results. The actors were in town publicizing the film Perfect Stranger; co-star Bruce Willis had obviously been unavailable but I didn't mind as I'd been enjoying Ribisi's work for years by that point, and continue to do so today.

As I explained with the Halle Berry post, I showed up for this shoot with a camera I was reviewing - Sony's a100, the first DSLR in their camera lineup. A prudent photographer would have done some tests to see how it performed in the challenging circumstances of my hotel room shoots, but I didn't. Imagine my shock when I walked into the rooms at the Windsor Arms to be reminded that it was a hotel with tiny windows letting in scant light.

Still, I've shot using available light for so long that, as far as I'm concerned, any light is good light. But the Ribisi shoot wasn't about making do with poor light like the Halle Berry shoot I did the same day - the light I found in the room where I shot Giovanni Ribisi was amazing! Dim, but amazing, which means that I've worked especially hard to make these shots turn out years after they were taken, to overcome the technical limitations of the source image.

Giovanni Ribisi, Toronto, March 21, 2007

As I said before, the Sony a100 didn't perform particularly well in low light. Perhaps if I'd shot RAW in addition to jpeg I might have had something richer to work with, but I've only started shooting uncompressed files recently. (A shameful admission, I know.) With the Halle Berry shoot I was disappointed that I couldn't find a really lovely piece of light and had to improvise, but even though I loved what I was seeing through the viewfinder with Ribisi, I knew I'd have a hell of a time making them workable for newsprint.

This is a case where I was actually taking photos with some future use in mind, beyond the job at hand. I just didn't know that this future use would be this blog. The dim but dramatic side light looked like something from an old issue of Esquire, or a British Sunday weekly magazine in the '60s, and seemed appropriate for Ribisi, who's more like the sort of actors that mixed character with leading man, back when movies were generally more interesting.

The problem was that I was working for a newspaper - I had, in fact, always worked for newsprint publications - where highlights need to pop and really dark shadows just suck up ink. This is probably the biggest disappointment I had to live with for most of my career, and the reason why I've only recently been able to present my work the way I always saw it in my mind - without a client to pay for it, to be sure, but very nearly the way I always wanted it to look.

Giovanni Ribisi, Toronto, March 21, 2007

Halle Berry

Halle Berry, Toronto, March 21, 2007

WHAT AMAZES ME IS THAT THESE PICTURES TURNED OUT AT ALL. I photographed Halle Berry in a room at the Windsor Arms hotel when she was in town doing publicity for Perfect Stranger, a thriller where she co-starred with Bruce Willis. A few years earlier I'd have just been surprised by getting a session with someone like Berry - a real celebrity and movie star, a Bond Girl and the winner of an Academy Award.

But by 2007 I was accustomed to having access - however brief - to some pretty big Hollywood names. I was still wrestling with the challenge of trying to push for something even faintly dramatic in the scant minutes (really seconds) I had with them, so I'm amazed that I chose to walk into a shoot with Berry holding a camera I'd never used before, into a situation where finding decent light had proved to be difficult in the past.

I'd added the role of tech column writer to my list of responsibilities at the free daily, and naturally I liked to review new cameras, like the Sony a100 I was using that day. While there was a bit of accidental synergy happening with this - Perfect Stranger was released by Sony Pictures - I was taking a bit of a risk by trusting the results of my shoot to the first-ever DSLR made by the company.

Halle Berry, Toronto, March 21, 2007

It turned out that the a100 - like quite a few of the early digital SLRs at the time - had a bit of an issue with shooting in low light. And the Windsor Arms, while a luxurious hotel, was notable for its small windows and lack of daylight (especially compared to hotels like the old Four Seasons a block or two away.) I knew as soon as I saw the room that I'd have a lot of work to do in Photoshop.

It wasn't that Berry needed the work. Far from it - she was as lovely in real life as she appeared onscreen. But the light was poor and lacked vibrance or focus, and I was going to lose quite a bit of detail by shooting at ISO 1600. Additionally, the autofocus system on the a100 had a hard time locking onto Berry in the dim room, reducing the number of really usable shots.

There's no shortage of really glamorous photos of someone like Halle Berry out there; I knew that my portraits wouldn't be among them. These shots work - if they work at all - as vaguely arty snapshots of a person who photographs really well, but who knows that her bare minimum in front of a camera will come off so much better than most other people. The technical limitations of my equipment and the shortcomings of the location combined to create what I would have considered at any other time in my career to be an unacceptably narrow window of success.