Herb Ritts

Herbert Ritts, was born on August 13, 1952 to parents who owned a profitable furniture business in California, Herb was part of a family who lived in a mansion in Beverly Hills and also had a summer home on fashionable Santa Catalina Island. The young Herb Ritts grew up in glamorous surroundings, with movie stars for neighbours.

Herb Ritts, had not decided what profession to pursue, but like David Bailey, he certainly was not considering a career in photography, which he had only recently taken up as a hobby. It happened, however, that in 1978 he had his camera with him when he and a friend the then little-known actor Richard Gere had to stop at a gas station to repair a flat tire. Among the pictures that Herb snapped was one of a sweaty Gere clad in jeans and a tank top, his arms languidly stretched over his head, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Soon thereafter, when Gere received widespread attention for his role in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo (1980), Herb sent his photos to Gere's publicist. "A few months later she sent me Vogue, Esquire, and Elle. They all used my pictures. I got cheques too," Herb recalled. Newsweek also ran a photo of Jon Voight that Herb had managed to take when he made his way onto the set of Franco Zeffirelli's The Champ (1979).

Herb had found his calling as a photographer, and his pictures were in demand. Within a few years his photos were gracing the covers of Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, Harper's Bazaar, and Interview. He also did fashion spreads for important designers such as Gianni Versace and Ralph Lauren. Herb's photographs were the basis of a number of provocative and extremely successful advertising campaigns, including ones for Revlon, Donna Karan, the Gap, and Calvin Klein.

Herb became well known for dramatic black-and-white photographs that focused on a single part of the subject's body. His portrait of Olympic heptathlon champion Jackie Joyner-Kersee captures her lower torso and powerful thighs in mid-leap; her head appears only in shadow on the ground. Many of Herb's photographs celebrate the well-developed body. Some of his images have been compared to classical statuary because of the exquisiteness of the subjects' form. Other photos, however, show human vulnerability: Christopher Reeve posing in his wheelchair, Elizabeth Taylor revealing her scar after brain surgery, the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking struggling against his frailty.

Museum director Malcolm Rogers described Herb’s as having "an ability to create unforgettable images of great force and beauty" and also "a sense of the bizarre, of style and drama, [and] of erotic energy." He added that Herb's images show "a world without barriers of race or barriers of sexuality." Two of Herb's books, however, speak to issues of race and sexuality. The photos in Africa depict the daily lives of indigenous peoples of eastern Africa. Herb was pleased when Nelson Mandela praised the book, commenting that "it reminded him of his childhood." Herb was always candid about his own sexuality. He realized that he was gay while he was in college. He soon came out to his parents, who were accepting and supportive.

Herb will also be remembered for his vigorous fund-raising efforts in the quest for a cure for AIDS, in particular for his efforts on behalf of amFAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Herb kept working until just a few days before his death. Among his last projects were the cover shot for the March 2003 issue of Vanity Fair and a photo session with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Herb died in Los Angeles on December 26, 2002, of complications of pneumonia. He had been diagnosed as HIV-positive years before, and although his death was not specifically HIV-related, the virus had compromised his immune system.

Some of Herb Ritts’s portraits are shown below:

Sources of information

Professional Photographer, National Portrait Gallery, Professional Photographers, Digital Photo Pro, Herbritts.com, PDN Gallery, Area of Design

 

Evaluation of Images

Herb has taken a wide selection of types of portrait including full length (Richard Gere in column 1 row 1 of the images above), head and shoulders (Madonna in column 1 row 3) and head only portraits (Jack Nicholson columns 1 and 2 row 2).

Not all of Herb's photographs feature the subject actually looking at the photographer with some, for example a portrait named octopus (column 1 row 8) looking away from the camera, showing off his hair.  Herb has experimented with two photographs (columns 1 and 2 row 7) with the subjects face actually covered and cannot be seen, with one portrait (column 1 row 10) the subject is looking directly at Herb through a veil, showing the subjects face.

Most of the head only portraits are cropped tightly to draw attention to the subjects faces.

Most of Herb's portraits are evenly lit, with an exception (of this selection of his portfolio) of Sean Connery, who's portrait is very low key with part of the left side of his face hidden in the shadows.

Like David Bailey, Herb's portraits of men and women differ in the way the texture of the subject's skin is handled.  With men the sometimes rough texture is obvious, where as with women the skin has a very smooth appearance.

Herb's portraits have a very good tonal range.

George Hurrell

Looking through some copies of the Professional Photographer magazine I found an article on the top 100 photographers and in this list I found George Hurrell, who was famous for his portraits of the Hollywood movie stars.

George was born in 1904, in Covington (across the river from Cincinnati.  George developed an interest in painting and drawing at a young age and only got involved in photography when started learning how to use a camera so he got photograph his own paintings.

He later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.  In 1925, after completing his studies, George was commissioned to photograph painters and their paintings in Laguna Beach art colony.  George moved west where he was hoping to continue to study art, but he found that he was taking portraits more than he was painting pictures.

One of George’s first portrait subjects was the famous avatrix Poncho Barnes.  Through his work for her he met the silent movies star Ramon Novarro, shown below:

Ramon Novarro 1931

Ramon commissioned George for a series of portraits, which he showed off to others working at MGM.  These portraits caught the eye of the leading lady Norma Shearer who was married to MGM Production Chief Irving G Thalberg.  Norma hired George to take some ‘sizzling photographs’ of her for her bid to star as the lead role in the movie The Divorcee.  Irving was so impressed with George’s work that he hired George as head of the MGM portrait gallery in 1930.

Over the next two years George photographed every star at MGM, including Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler.  George’s portraits set a new standard for Hollywood portraits, inspiring a new name for the genre – glamour photography.

Following a disagreement with Howard Strickling, the head of publicity at MGM, George set up is own photographic studio on Sunset Boulevard, where the stars still flocked to George for their portraits.

After six years he moved to Warner Brothers where his portraits were to help building the careers of Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn and James Cagney.  George later moved to Columbia where he worked with Rita Hayworth to shape her image.

After the second world war, where George shot training films and photographed generals at the Pentagon, George returned to Hollywood where he found that glamour photography was no longer in fashion.  He moved to New York where he shot advertising and fashion layouts through the 1950’s. 

After George returned to Hollywood in 1952, where he and his wife Phyllis started a television production company, George settled in Southern California 1956 where he moved back into the movie industry as a still photographer.

In 1965 his work was showcased at museums around the world.  In 1976 George, working with Whitney Stine, published the book ‘The Hurrell Style’.  Followed by other commemorative books and special edition prints of some of his newer Hollywood portraits of Sharon Stone, Brooke Shields, and John Travolta.  Among his last assignments where photographing Warren Beatty and Annette Benning for the movie Bugsy, Natalie Cole for the best selling album ‘Unforgettable’ and his last subject Jennifer Flavin for a fashion layout.

George died of caner in 1992.

Some more examples of George’s work is shown below:

Sources of information

Digital Photo Pro, Portrait Photographers, Professional Photography

 

Evaluation of Images

Having worked in Hollywood, George has styled his portrait photography to match the way the subject is portrayed in their movies, for example Humphrey Bogart (column two row three) is looking confident, reassuring and calm, just as he was portrayed in his movies.

Men are portrayed as per their most popular character, women are portrayed as glamorous, and gentle.  The subject is always the main focus of the portrait, with limited depth of field blurring out any background features, although some still retained some detail of the background.

Many of George's portraits seem to be head only or head and shoulders, with very few three quarter or full length portraits.

The lighting is often harsh and uneven, with the portrait of Humphrey Bogart as a prime example of this.  Despite the uneven lighting, the portraits do exhibit a good tonal range.

A number of the portraits do not feature the subject actually looking in the direction of the camera.

Richard Avedon

Richard was born on 15 May 1923, in New York.  His parents were Russian / Jewish immigrants.

Richard went to Dewitt Clinton School, where he worked on the school newspaper.  He then moved onto the Columbia University but aged 17 he dropped out and joined the Merchant Marine’s Photographic section, in 1942.  There he mainly took personnel id photographs, with his Rolleiflex camera that his father gave him.  Later he was going on missions to photograph ship wrecks.

In 1944 he got a job as a photographer in a department store.  At first he made a living working in advertising.  It was here where Richard was noticed by Alexey Brodovitch, the art director for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar.  Richard went on to be a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar, In 1946  Richard set up his own studio and began photographing for Vogue and Life magazines as well as Harper’s Bazaar.  It was here where Richard became very well known for his stylistically innovative fashion work through him insisting that his models showed emotions like smiling and laughing, something that at that time was new, models were used to being emotionless and indifferent to the presence of the camera.

In 1966 Richard left Harper’s Bazaar to work as a staff photographer for Vogue magazine, moving up to the position of Lead Photographer.

Although well known for his fashion work, Richard is today better known for how he reinvented portrait photography by expressing the essence of the subject of the portrait, bringing us a closer more intimate view of the famous people he photographed.  In fact as he became more famous he photographed US Presidents, political leaders, film stars, and more.

John F Kennedy with his wife Jackie

Like David Bailey and Irving Penn, Richard concentrated on the subject with his well lit, white backdrop and no use of props, the style of portrait photography that I like myself where the attention is on the subject and not their surroundings.

Also Richard began to branch out away from fashion photography, photographing the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, the fall of the Berlin Wall and during this period he took some famous portraits of The Beatles in 1967 (which became one of the first major rock poster series) and again in 1968.

In 1979 – 84 Richard worked on his famous “In the American West” book which featured normal everyday people he saw on his travels, but this was slated by some who were shocked how he treated these ordinary people with the same dignity and respect that he had always shown to more rich and famous people.

Sadly, on 1st October 2004, whilst shooting an assignment for the New Yorker,  and also working on a new project titled Democracy which focused on the 2004 US Presidential elections, Richard died of a brain haemorrhage aged 81.

But Richard’s legacy has been how he has changed how portraits, and sometimes their subjects, are seen and his portraits have influenced a number of photographers, and their styles, ever since.

Some of Richard’s photographs are shown below:

 

Sources of information

National Portrait Gallery, Professional Photography, Digital Photo Pro, richardavedon.com

 

Evaluation of Images

Richard, like Herb, has taken a wide range of types of portrait, but seems to have preferred the three quarter length style.  He has not cropped as tightly as David Bailey, allowing his portraits to have some space around his subjects.

The majority of Richard's portraits have been taken with plain backgrounds, concentrating the viewer on the subject by removing any possible distractions.  In fact during his "In the American West" project Richard is said to have taken his plain backdrop with him to capture those people he wanted to photograph against a plain background, as opposed to their surroundings.

In most of Richard's portraits the subject is looking towards the camera, maintaining the photographer to subject link through the portrait .

The majority of Richard's portraits are more formal than some photographers, possibly due to the more formal formats that were expected at the time, although Richard had been taking ID photographs for years and this may have lead to this approach being used more.

The square shape of some of Richard's portraits was as a result of the format of the camera.

Richard's photographs display a good tonal range with good even lighting, even during his "In the American West" where he was working on location often with existing light.