Chuck Close 20x24 Polaroids in Vanity Fair

[austin granger]

I see your point Austin and I like what you say. I think you're right but, there's a point in between. Is it really necessary to light them THAT badly? It almost seems like he tried to make them look bad on purpose.

Well, maybe Close is sort of "righting the ship," in the sense that because we've seen so many elevated, exalted portraits of these subjects (as if the photographers were reinforcing the idea that these stars are gods, separate from us), that in order to bring them back down to "ordinary" people status, to return them to the real individuals that they are, Close had to make the pictures look somewhat ugly. In any case, I don't think they're mean-spirited pictures. If anything could describe how I feel when when looking at them, I guess "sympathetic" would be the word. Not sympathetic because the subjects look bad (I really don't think they do), but because they look ordinary. I think Close did what what he had to do to get this feeling across. Maybe that is what is required: to make a "real" picture of a star they have to be made to look like the guy that picks up your garbage. Conversely, to make a "real" picture of a garbageman, you have to make him look like a saint. The truth of course, is somewhere in the middle-everyone on earth is both a flawed and holy individual.

*No offense to garbagemen. It was just an example. I don't even know what my garbageman looks like. He might look like Brad Pitt for all I know.

[Drew Wiley]

Taking plain "down to earth" portraits of celebrities is very old hat by now. At least he's not wearing them down with fatigue to the point he's claiming to reveal their
"inner soul" like Avedon did, which was in fact just a ploy of popping the shutter when they were at optimum exhaustion and looked downright haggard and depressed, like sitting in a dental chair for hours on end. Possibly the same rationale behind using a less than flattering perspective with a relatively short focal length
lens. Besides the folks doing all the real printing decisions for Close, I've had some good discussions with surviving assistants to Hurrell, and have even seen a number
of the original negs, and have discussed any number of bit of logistical and tech lore. An interesting contrast in how celebrities were treated. But in both cases,
most of the work and even creative heavy-lifting was actually done by someone other than the artists themselves.

[StoneNYC]

Taking plain "down to earth" portraits of celebrities is very old hat by now. At least he's not wearing them down with fatigue to the point he's claiming to reveal their
"inner soul" like Avedon did, which was in fact just a ploy of popping the shutter when they were at optimum exhaustion and looked downright haggard and depressed, like sitting in a dental chair for hours on end. Possibly the same rationale behind using a less than flattering perspective with a relatively short focal length
lens. Besides the folks doing all the real printing decisions for Close, I've had some good discussions with surviving assistants to Hurrell, and have even seen a number
of the original negs, and have discussed any number of bit of logistical and tech lore. An interesting contrast in how celebrities were treated. But in both cases,
most of the work and even creative heavy-lifting was actually done by someone other than the artists themselves.

I've heard this from a lot of assistance, including some who said that their photographer that they worked for for years, never knew how to use a view camera, and how he had them set it up and then he just clicked the shutter... But was getting $20,000 a shoot... Amazing... Lol

Then again that's hearsay from the assistance, so who knows what really happens, but it wouldn't surprise me...

[Kirk Gittings]

You here so much bullshit from former assistants about how they were really the ones responsible for this and that. I would not put the slightest weight behind such statements. I've heard of ridiculous claims even by my former assistants yet the quality of my work just goes on and on through many assistants whereas they disappear from the profession.

[Drew Wiley]

First of all Kirk, Close is handicapped and in fact incapable of doing anything other than elementary camera operations. He still paints with extreme difficulty, I am
told. Second, the people who process his work have a very very sophisticated facility and proprietary skills that make anything in the world of mere mortal Photoshop skills and inkjet printing look like something from the Pliocene. They've done this kind of things for several decades and once were at the top of the heap when it came to Pt/pd capacity. Emigrated here from NYC, but now nearing retirement. Their "minimum" lab fee is 40K and they won't even accept work from anyone whocan't fetch seven figures for the end product. ... In the other case I referred to the "lab AND cameraman" worked directly with Hurrell for many years, and still possesses many of the original negs, separation negs, and early Kodachromes - I've seen em and handled em, and discussed stuff at length which nobody could possibly know unless they had been thoroughly integrated into the whole workflow. So in at least the first instance I referred to, even the bulk of the
esthetic decisions were made by the craftsmen en route. Close merely furnished the neg and the general idea of what he wanted. You can't get too specific when
the entire method of display reproduction has to be outright invented before anyone knows what it will finally look like. That is what these folks specialize in.
I suspect that in the hardwood puzzle project I just described, they got around 75K and Close probably ten times that, but that's how it works!

[Drew Wiley]

... I don't think that it's any big secret that Hurrell employed camera operators as well as lab helpers and studio set designers, and was himself more of the supervisor
and marketeer. Usually someone else did the actual shooting. The last big portrait studio in this area worked in the same manner, essentially as an assembly line where the owner/"photographer" outlined the workflow, but left everything else, including actual shooting, to employees. Last nite I was watching a new documentary on the Civil War, and there too, Matthew Brady did very little if any of the actual photographer. He hired employees for that disgusting business, under
those conditions, and concentrated on marketing. And it's unthinkable that Close works without helpers. That he trips the shutter himself is commendable, but after
that someone else has to take over. Not a criticism... he's already earned his wings as a hands-on painter.

[jcoldslabs]

I will reserve final judgment until I have seen the prints in person because scale matters. I remember seeing some of Avedon's "American West" portraits in a magazine article at the time and I thought they were good, but a bit stark. Then I went and saw the whole exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and was blown away. BLOWN. FRIGGIN'. AWAY. It was not only the size of the prints and the clarity of them but seeing them all together that affected me so deeply.

Last October there was a Chuck Close exhibit in town of enormous 103" x 79" woven tapestries made from some of his Daguerreotype portraits. I almost didn't go because it sounded gimmicky, but I was downtown and checked it out anyway. Again, as with the Avedon, I was floored. I stayed in the gallery longer than I have for any show I've seen there, stepping forward to examine the individual threads and then back to take in the portraits as a whole. Amazing work. (This was also true of a Crewdson exhibit I saw a decade ago. The scale of the prints is part of the impact.)

Jonathan

[Tin Can]

+1 and all in one show could be amazing. I also look forward to viewing for several reasons, not the least to actually view the print quality. Who knows maybe I will sell everything to chase the magic bullet 20x24 camera print.

Not likely.

I will reserve final judgment until I have seen the prints in person because scale matters. I remember seeing some of Avedon's "American West" portraits in a magazine article at the time and I thought they were good, but a bit stark. Then I went and saw the whole exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and was blown away. BLOWN. FRIGGIN'. AWAY. It was not only the size of the prints and the clarity of them but seeing them all together that affected me so deeply.

Last October there was a Chuck Close exhibit in town of enormous 103" x 79" woven tapestries made from some of his Daguerreotype portraits. I almost didn't go because it sounded gimmicky, but I was downtown and checked it out anyway. Again, as with the Avedon, I was floored. I stayed in the gallery longer than I have for any show I've seen there, stepping forward to examine the individual threads and then back to take in the portraits as a whole. Amazing work. (This was also true of a Crewdson exhibit I saw a decade ago. The scale of the prints is part of the impact.)

Jonathan

[Scott --]

Hey, I can shoot (hypothetically) with a 20x24 Polaroid camera, too; unfortunately, it won't make my photos any better.
So for me, it's an empty exercise that brings nothing new to the table, nor any insight into these famous people; just poorly executed mega-sized photos from a mega-sized vintage-y camera.

Absolutely spot-on, and eloquently states my current dysfunction with format choices in general.

[Andrew O'Neill]

(except the past two days, stuck at the desk more than usual due to a gout attack in my left foot!)

Ooh I feel your pain! I haven't had a gout attack for years, since I got control of my cholesterol and started exercising regularly, and staying away from foods that are high in purines.