Celebrity Portraits —> Soft Porn —> Love

Celebrity Portraits —> Soft Porn —> Love

If you're interested in editorial portraiture in general and celebrity portraits in particular, you probably already know about the teNeues magnum opus of the work of he's-everywhere man-o'-the-moment Martin Schoeller, who I don't know and about whom I know nothing. I don't really care for Martin's Sunday-magazine style much, to be honest, although I certainly admire his level of accomplishment and work ethic, from my vantage point way down here in the foothills far below the snowy Olympian peak he inhabits.

Vincent Peters (same publisher) is more to my own taste, although I don't know much about these genres in general. "How can a photographer of internationally known stars create iconic portraits that linger in the memory—especially since these actors have already been photographed and filmed millions of times?" asks the blurb—and then answers itself by saying that Vincent Peters "relies entirely on the classic art of portrait photography for his pictures."

...Well, classic portrait photography as well as all the boudoir-ish signifiers of sexuality so common in current fashion photography, I'd say. Much fashion photography seems more interested in models and their bodies than the often provocative or skimpy "fashions" they happen to be wearing. (As far as fashion photography goes, I prefer Bill Cunningham -style fashion-on-the-hoof photography of the sort practiced by The Sartorialist, which intersects not only with fashion but with street portraiture of the Humans of New York variety.)

Too much sexuality-signifier fashion and it's almost a relief to alight on Angels , a book in which clothing is mainly dispensed with altogether. This one's a best-seller, probably deservedly so. "Russell James has spent 15 years being the primary photographer for the lovely and fascinating women who have been featured by Victoria's Secret over the years. [...] This ample volume showcases these heavenly representations of womanhood in all their splendor. Subtly provocative in a tastefully seductive manner, these portraits capture each model's individual blend of physical attractiveness and beguiling personality." Those, in case you need it pointed out, are correct code-words for "soft porn."

If that's what you like, you might enjoy Frank De Mulder's Glorious , published by guess who.

But rather than look further in that particular direction, let's take the fork in that road and arrive at fine-art nudes, of which Ralph Gibson's Nude is an outstanding recent example (finally, a publisher other than teNeues: this one's put out by Taschen).

I got to go out photographing with Ralph on one of my few jaunts out of the bunker, in the 1990s. A studio visit too, on which occasion he gave me a stack of his then-recently published books. One was a small volume of nudes, an extended portrait of his then (and maybe still, I don't know) girlfriend. A charming little book . I still have it and still like it.

(Also—geekery alert—he showed me his Leitz enlarger, which he had purchased from Robert Frank. It is the selfsame one which Robert Frank had used to print the original pictures for The Americans . I told him the enlarger belongs in the Smithsonian Institution when he's done with it.)

Ralph's nudes of his GF gets me at last back home to my own favorite genre of pictures of women, which is the old and honorable motif of photographers who have made loving extended portraits of their own wives. Emmet Gowin's pictures in his first book of Edith (who I met once as well—she speaks in a high twang that startled me at first); Harry Callahan's pictures of Eleanor (that's a nice article at the link if you know Callahan's work), which, taken altogether, are probably the pinnacle of this particular genre; or Lee Friedlander's many pictures over many years of Maria:

Lee Friedlander with his wife and frequent muse Maria

in 1963 (above) and 1997 (below). Both photos by Lee Friedlander.

But those kinds of photographs are about love as well as sex, so maybe they're outside the scope of this post.

Mike

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The flesh and the spirit abideth not here

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Jim Simmons: "I don't think Lee would be Lee without Maria, and I think he knows it. To be married to someone who understands and values your work is a gift."