Greg Gorman | The best celebrity Portrait Photographer | Jessops

[Music] my name is Greg Gorman I grew up in the Midwest and I was born in 1949 in Kansas City Missouri [Music] in 1968 I borrowed a friend of Mines camera to photograph a Jimi Hendrix concert in Kansas City knowing absolutely nothing about photography I asked him what should I do he said set the camera at f56 sixtieth of a second with try X film and you'll get an image and so I shot the pictures and the following morning I went to his home and processed the film in his darkroom and when I saw that first picture coming up in the tray I was pretty hooked it's a little bit soft on the focus and I wasn't sure if it was because I was shooting too slow or I'd smoke too much dope that night it was the 60s and the hippie era [Music] so that's how everything began and at that point I decided to enroll in a course in photojournalism at the University of Kansas something quite removed from what I'm doing today so I started there began my journey in photography and after two years at the University of Kansas I decided to go to California and major in cinematography as opposed to felt as opposed to still so to speak I was advised by a friend unless I wanted to be a technical sales rep maybe steady film and that's how it all began and I ended up going to school and finishing my degree in film working with 2k quartz lights and 1k softboxes and it's those very lights that kind of became part of my entourage and establishment in terms of photography when I got out of school I gave up the idea of being a cinematographer because I was much more of a control freak and I like the one-on-one relationship with people so Greg what we're going to try and do is recreate your 1984-85 favorite David Bowie here and can you tell me a little bit more about the kind of lights in the year you would have used back then or well this was shot with with strobe probably back in those days with Dynalite or comet strategies flash we did this in New York it was one of those shoots that David and I worked on together in New York we would he always would we would do these lengthy shoots because he hated doing photo sessions so he would basically we would shoot for sometimes a few days and we would collect a lot of different images that he would have for publications this was just one of the series of pictures that we created in New York City back at that time and this is just shot with a single point light source from this side with probably a small softbox medium not a medium box I'd like one small of that a little bit medium size by two by three okay so it's still a relatively coming yeah I always I never shot with real big boxes because I like more directional light and so I wanted the light to fall off more quickly than giving something with a broader wrap so basically this is just a fairly high key coming camera right on David you can see it's just pick up a little bit of light under his back eye and then we had we had this little bead of sweat on his face here if you can kind of see right here yeah I don't today we just breathe you want something that looks similar but you don't want to copy it exactly one side is just kind of in this vein right yeah exactly we call copy David Bowie right so we'll just try to to create a position that's close with lighting and basically what we're gonna try to do then from what I understand is if you want me to take what I had done with flash here and apply them how I would use it with rhodolite right so it's great because with rhodolite with a continuous light like road light I can see exactly what I'm doing much more precisely than I can with flash with flash you're looking at a model light that's like maybe 250 watts cool so it's dim yeah but with rode light what's great is you have that full brilliance of the light and you really see exactly what you're doing and you're able to really make adjustment so I don't think it'll take us that long to try to dial into this what I'm noticing though on the background is a little bit more of my earlier work the backgrounds lit fairly evenly it's a little bit of a gradient coming up but I think for the purposes of this demonstration we'll just try to get them back on lit evenly with two lights and that would be something you'd never be able to see with flash because the modeling lights are not gonna give you that exact of an adjustment you'll hit them and one will be much brighter than the other and one will be dimmer but what we can do here is we'll see exactly when the lights kind of match and hit that background so that's kind of a great thing that's kind of where we are and then the the beautiful thing about what the road lights will also be able to tell I know if we're picking up reflections off the guitar because we want to make sure we don't get a kick off the guitar we want to see it make sure we've had good catch lights in the eyes those sort of things that's where Road light really shines [Music] when I began I shot with the lights that I worked within in school because I couldn't afford to buy flash it was too expensive so the one cake quartz lights and the 2k softbox has made sense to me and I love the idea of that continuous light however as my career took off and I began working with high-profile personalities I went to flash and throughout that bulk of my career photographing people everybody from Dustin Hoffman on Tootsie Al Pacino on Scarface I worked with Leonardo DiCaprio through all of his formative years people like David Bowie who I photographed for good 10 12 years of his career Grace Jones I've worked with for more than 40 years in her career and Elton John certainly for the same amount of time it's been kind of crazy so after many years of working with flash and and strobe I realized what I really loved was continuous light and what I was working with in my studio throughout those years was a 6k HMI from arrow flex and it was a $30,000 light it was very hot very heavy had to run off of a ballast but it produced extraordinary light with a little diffusion in front of it today I'm so fortunate because like everything has come full circle for me full circle was from processing pictures in a digital dart in a traditional darkroom to working digitally and with lighting today now thanks to rota light I'm able to basically replicate the light that I was creating with a continuous light back in the days at a much more affordable rate and a much more easier profile working with lights now that don't have to be plugged in but don't get hot that basically run off batteries it's pretty extraordinary it so it's it's revolutionised so many ways in terms of how I see and understand and interpret light today and working with the range of lights that they produce basically from their anova twos to the new Neos the little small Neos which is what I travel with I've been very pleased a couple of the great features leave that I love about these lights first we talked a little bit about how much I really loved working with the portable batteries they're very lightweight the lights run for two two and a half hours which is fantastic one of the great things about this light compared working with like the $30,000 HMI is the fact that you can adjust the color balance without affecting the color once you increase or decrease the power of the light regardless of how much the intensity of the light is the color balance once you set it never changes for example now we're at 6300 which would do the coolest daylight and as I bring it down you can see it warms up going more into the tungsten range you can see it starts to get a lot more yellow hues but if I stay let's say at 5500 which is generally where I shoot this light a lot and now I'm going to the intensity light even though I'm dropping the power of the intensity of light the color temperature remains constant that's fantastic because that means if you're balancing with window lighters an alternate source you can dial it right in it's really fantastic very very obvious it's very intuitive there's so many elements that go into creating a successful and succinctly and one is body language leaning into a portrait is going to give you the strength that you want in a portrait like this if I lean into the portrait let's say this is the better side of my face leaning in is going to give me a strong portrait as soon as I break that line and kind of come back this way you see I lose that power and the strength it's keeping those eyes on a parallel line so when leaning into the portrait you've got a stronger picture coming out not so strong likewise if I was to turn this way and let's say the other side of my face is the better side of my face again I'm gonna lean into the portrait and it's the head comes back this way I lose that strength and the power that you normally see in leaning into a picture simple thing and by the same token all rules are meant to be broken because there's always that moment particularly if you're shooting a beautiful girl sometimes sometimes you want that wistful head leaning back and going but in general leaning into body language usually will give you a stronger and and more powerful portrait [Music] chin down for me a little bit [Music] that's looking pretty damn good that's pretty good with wonted yes but I gotta tell you that he's pretty impressive yeah so what I want to do is I want to take a silver board let's take that silver board and we might even end up putting a neo into it it's not much like we need to get a little more rec let's you know what no let's do this first let's just bring this light into me a little bit more just yeah about there about there that's it always go behind the person when you're gliding because you know it looks like the right now that lights hitting my hands not even on it so if I come down here with him then I can see right when that lights right on him yeah is that something that you do with rosa light and any D's I do it with it continuous light any light same with strobe everything small oh yeah anywhere where your point light source is coming from because basically I can sit here and you can sit here and the lights on him and no matter where you shoot he slipped so to speak but if you want the sweet spot of the light to be right on the money which is basically the gate which you try to gear towards a lot unless you're doing something where you want that light to fade off to a certain side then the best is to go right behind your subject and see that pinpointing that lights out on the person when I began taking pictures back at the end of the 60s all my pictures kind of look like interchangeable postage stamps the lights were right over the camera everybody looked pretty they look good but there was not a lot of distinction to the pictures pretty much like today when we started this video for you guys the light was rather flat and we sat here and moved and lights around until we get something that I think has a little bit more interest it wasn't until I photographed Tom wait in the late in the late 70s that I began to develop my style and I started taking the light off the center focus of camera and more to the side and created a more dynamic range between my highlights and my shadows and I realized that it wasn't what you said in your highlights but what you don't say in your shadows that make a pick makes a picture so to speak more interesting and one of the great things in terms of working with fixed lights and particularly for today where I spent so much time teaching being able to move the continuous lights the road lights around until I find that exact sweet spot for the light is really an added bonus and I'm not doing a good job of teaching how I normally shoot because I always say don't get on top of your subject and zoom out back up and zoom in to get a longer lens so I'm gonna come back I think that was shot with a Hasselblad anyway not even with 35 but 35 now is good so ain't gonna be about here and I think now we're looking pretty good I think one of the most important things in portraiture today and I don't see it so often because with the onset of digital everybody can make a picture look good but looking good isn't enough to get a connected portrait you really have to get inside the person's head learning lighting and getting all that done that's easy let's walk in the park anybody can learn how to light anybody can learn how to pose somebody but the bottom line at the end of the day is can you get inside someone's head and get them to deliver what it takes to create a connected portrait and a lot of that deals with psychology relating to the person building their trust and confidence which is a big part of personality photography I always share my vision with the people that I'm photographing whether it's showing him in the old days of Polaroid now today a picture on the back of a digital camera so that they feel like you both are playing for the same team oftentimes photographers invoke I think too much of their own personality into a photograph and don't take into consideration that it's basically a two-way street and the person on the other side of your lens is just as valid and important as you are as a photographer you can't let your ego get in the way so I try to spend time with the people before I photograph them in the makeup room you know kind of come up or down to their level to make them feel comfortable and confident and make them realize that you know at the end of the day we want the same thing you want a great portrait and that helps relax them a lot of times and gives them sometimes more into the movie I think one of the big miss nomas today and portraiture photography is if you put the light on the person and you take a picture you've got a portrait and yes maybe you do have a portrait but one of the things that you have to think about is that we see everything in a three-dimensional world but after you capture a portrait that's now being reduced to a 2-dimensional world a two-dimensional substrate on a piece of paper so you lose basically a lot of the person a lot of the life a lot of what you see in an individual when you look at a person and you're taking a picture you're seeing a three-dimensional world within that three-dimensional world your eyes forgive all the flaws and all the things that that person may possess all of us have flaws and all of us have areas where we look better and where we look worse and so one of the ideas and one of the most important concepts behind strong portraiture photography is to find the right angle and to know where you're shooting and how you should basically assess that person many celebrities today shoot from one angle they do can they come to see you get to shoot me from my left side you have to shoot with my right side you got to bring the camera up higher don't bring it down low so when I'm shooting and when I begin a session particularly with a person that I've never photographed before I basically start in very close I will start with the light on one side of the camera generally I begin with it right over the camera and I'll turn the person to the left and to the right to try to see if one person has a higher cheekbone when I is smaller you want to put a smaller eye closer to the camera all of the things and yet generally with most personalities you'll find two or three things that really work and two or three things that really don't work just like a mathematician you add them up and find out what's the best drama denominator to basically balance and get a really strong portrait being in close to begin with a portrait also breaks through that whole distance between you and the subject you want to create a level of intimacy from the beginning so there's a relationship that you can build on throughout your photo session starting in close and finding your angle and best way to shoot the person is always going to give you the best results because once you pull the camera back and you're clear across the room from a person shooting you know which way they need to turn what the body language is [Music] [Music] let's hand passing on the look is the perfect exhibit together I think we got it unlike you why don't you relax let's look at it [Music] the picture that strikes the strongest emotional chord with me is there is a funny photograph because it's a photograph of Andy Warhol and I was working a lot for Interview magazine at the time and I was shooting an advertising campaign for a small eyeglass company on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood called la Eyeworks and every month they would have would appear in interview magazine a picture of a famous celebrity sometimes a celebrity sometimes a writer a director could be a drag queen could be a street hustler but there were pictures that were just interesting people and I think that because the campaign had such a creative outlet it was successful for more than 30 years we're still shooting the campaign 40 years close to 40 years now and one day out of the clear blue I got a phone call in the around 1986 from Andy and he said asked me if I thought he would be a good candidate for an ad he had just signed a contract with Ford models to model and he wanted to come and do in la Eyeworks ad that would run in his publication interview magazine and little did I know that this commercial assignment would probably become my most infamous picture [Music] so I've got the images here from Greg on this very special memory card that I would keep me safe in my top pocket we've come along to our burg and so I'm gonna get the image printed up onto campus [Music] [Applause] [Music] the image itself was always meant to pay homage to to the original one it was never meant to be a direct copy so we've tried to match the guitar as as kind of closely as we could we've got over the ceiling the shape headstock and a similar shaped body we've got for a suede jacket rather the snakeskin jacket this time so we've not got quite as much shine but what I really really love about image is just the intense gaze of the model you know it worked really really well and we really loved it so the line is that the that Greg waiting for here it was amazing just how quickly he almost recreated the original what we've got is a key light coming from the right hand side to light the model and then on the background so the model was perhaps maybe 10 12 to 12 feet from the background the background we've got a lot on the right hand side and the wife then light on the left the one on the left is about a spot less powerful than one the right which gives us this kind of beautiful graduation across the background there as well I think the man himself David Bowie would have been quite pleased he will not directly copied his original but we've paid homage to it quite a nice way so if people want to come and see this for a short period of time it'll be on display in the Burnham store and to the Bateman mid-october time at which point it will go into the training room to aspire all of the wonderful Academy customers we have come through wanting to learn about photography [Music] one last really important thing for us here in the Birmingham stories that we really like to dedicate this video to our friend and colleague Andy Barton who sadly passed away earlier this year after almost 40 years service with the company Andy was a really big part of the photographic community here in the West Midlands and anybody that was anybody there was looking to buy a camera or come and get some prints done in the Oh Andy so we'd really like to dedicate this to him he was a huge huge David Bowie fan so this one and he made this one for you [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Jessops

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Rating: 4.891892 out of 5

Keywords: Rotolight, Greg Gorman, Portrait, celebrity, portrature, portraits, tips, help, how to, light, lighting, professional, photography, jessops, academy, london, greg gormen, David bowie, dave bowie, bowie, constant light, pro vs amatuer, advanced, basic, documentary, history, Fujifilm, Camera, apsc, mirrorless, dslr, fullframe, fuji, review, hands on, first impressions, sony, panasonic, nikon, olympus, canon, London camera exchange, park camera, Clifton cameras, best, wex photographic, new, photography reviews

Id: FdcNvTlbK9U

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019