Wednesday, May 10, 2006


The past seems rosy at times precisely because it is rosy. Editorial photography has changed. There is less time so the there is less fun to it. Sometimes I photograph actors before the writers have inteviewed them, or worse still the art director assigns me to shoot an actor and does not offer to show me the writer's copy. Some art directors, who don't read, assume that we photographers don't need to either. But once in a while (and this was more often in my rosy past) I get to work in tandem with the writer. And sometimes it may be a writer I specially like. The picture above of John Hurt came about because writer John Lekich and I have worked together often. I don't think this photograph would have happened if I had gone alone. John and I knocked at the door of Mr. Hurt's suite at the Hotel Vancouver. The big room had a huge canopied bed. I asked Hurt to pose in bed or as Lekich wrote in the March 12, 1998 issue of the Georgia Straight, "When he's asked to pose for posterity on a hotel bed in a manner indicative of total pleasure, his craggy features suggest that this is the best idea he's heard all day. "I'm delighted to do exactly as you wish, "he says with a smile. "Really you mustn't hold back."