All language subtitles for 12. Case Study Part 1- Photographing Alice Waters

I photographed Alice Waters many times,

a few times.

Ok.

The first time I photographed her was in

an apple orchard here

on the east coast.

And with

several other people from

the food world, and she's sitting under
apple trees.

She has a way of taking every single
situation, not only romanticizing it,

but making it seem poetic and very
beautiful.

I had this idea to photograph her and
her daughter,

fanny, for

the women's project.

My mother and daughter,

they were on the east coast, and I took
them to a fruit orchard to photograph

them together.

And it was a beautiful

orchard with apple tree

and peaches.

And I took these photographs from her
and fanny together,

and they were good,

but they, it was funny.

I felt like fanny

was older

and sort of ready for her own
photograph, which was ready for her own

imagery.

And I wasn't happy with those
photographs

with fanny and

Alice.

When we were talking

about doing a new shoot for the
masterplace,

Alice water's name came up, and I got
excited, because I thought, I can go

back again

and tried to tackle this idea of

how to take a photograph of Alice.

And

honestly,

it really

made me think that this could be a great

chance, our 4th chance to take a foot
of a photograph,

valley

that matter,

or work.

For me,

you have to really start thinking,
well, what do you really think about?

And that really does

feed

the ideas.

It can be extremely obvious

what

where the ideas can come from.

I mean, Alice Waters, to me, is

a force behind the food movement today.

I mean, she is responsible for the way
we eat in the United States today.

So this time

I start to talk to some of alice's

friends, Mona talbot

loris Reuben,

people that I know who

worked with Alice at some 0, and went
out

into the world

and creating their own,

their own world and have influence in
their own spheres.

But I was literally

in the kitchen with lauras rubin.

And then we just started talking,

and I started to realize that what
Alice really is

she's sort of

the emblem, or the symbol for,

in such an important

force behind the

food movement,

and eating right.

of course, she's responsible for the
edible schoolyard, which is very important.

And I started to think of

an image of her that could be more

poster like.

And I was thinking of the Russian
revolutionary posters.

I was thinking of the French
revolutionary posters

I started to look

at photographs of

during World War ii.

Alice talks about this yourself having
a victory garden, which is all that

really is is setting up a small,
vegetable garden in your own backyard.

And there's a lot of imagery

of working in your own backyard.

And I thought, maybe that is the
photograph I should take of Alice.

Instead of trying to be so natural

and so relaxed, maybe you should be
more formal.

And I hadn't seen a photograph like
that of Alice.

Because

one of the things you can do is you
can, of course, Google

pictures, and you can look at a lot of
different imagery in a valis, and you

see that she's constantly being asked
to sort of stand in a garden or

in a kitchen, or

to do these things that

are great, but

I haven't seen a photograph of her.

This sort of like

makes her

the symbol of her movement.

So

that's a big tall order to try to even
consider doing

on some level.

But I thought

I would try.

We had the reference material that I
did walk around with

there's

a French photographer, boubert,

as well as Julian, Marya Cameron.

And I think when I saw, when I found
this photograph,

juli mart cameron's picture,

it kind of embodied

what I sort of think of Alice

in a simple way, without having to have
her literally working in a garden.

This photograph that I was sort of
enamored with

for its simplicity, that I think sort
of gave me

a foundation

for the Alice water

portrait

and reminded me about being simple

and straightforward in a portrait.

And there was something about the
character in this woman

and her confidence

in herself

from this period, which is kind of
remarkable.

And then I'm looking

in the back.

First of all,

the subject

is named Alice.

Her name is Alice ladel.

And

in the little bio in the back, it
explains that, perhaps best known as

the little girl for whom Lewis Carroll

wrote the book, Alice is mentorism,
wonderland.

So it's

synchronicity here, where

this kind of elusiveness about Alice
Waters, who, as a kind of sex aspect

for her that I don't think I could
necessarily

pinpoint or

even talk about, I guess, is there in
this.

I think what I was drawn to is

this young woman

has

somehow or another bit of Alice Waters
in her.

So it's kind of remarkable.

I just love finding out that history,
that this is actually

the young woman from Alice and
wonderland,

you know, as I said before, looking at

poster style imagery.

And also

to even mention

migrant workers, the people in the field

pictures of people working the land.

But

I honestly didn't have a set idea how
this is going to work,

because my first instinct would be,

oh, just put on a pair of

Jeans and roll up your sleeves,

in your shirt and go out and look like
you're working in the garden or

something.

But she doesn't wear those kinds of
clothes.

So

you're kind of immediately brought to a
kind of more low

feel, which is not wrong for Alice,
because she is sensual.

She's extremely sensual.

I think that what I wasn't prepared for
was,

because I was talking to Laura one more
time, and we were talking about it in

her new book,

in her new memoir,

she has a chapter about the peach

and what the piece means to her, and
how the peach is so symbolic to her,

because it opens up all the senses.

It's interesting about the peach
because the piece is only really

available three or four months of the
year when you have them in season

through the most extraordinary

fruit.

So it's

a very special

piece of piece of fruit for her.

What I did ask Laura to do, I finally,
I said, you know what?

Laura, just come out to California,

you come to California to this shoot,
and let's help Alice

get ready for this, for this
photograph.

And then why don't you go out and look
for

peaches?

And this woman, with her family

set off to work the orchards that she
had.

And she said, you know what?

I found four peaches left on the very
last tree in the orchard.

These are called last chance speeches,

because they're coming later in the
season.

She drove them from napa valley down to
alice's house.

Those peaches became so symbolic to us
all, because they were the very last

months of the season.

I was just determined

to use these peaches because I just
felt they were,

you know, they just meant so much.

Music is a funny thing.

It goes in and out of my shoots.

I used to work on songlists

for many years that I love.

I used to make them myself.

And then,

and I would have

young assistance

they would put together songless.

I don't underestimate the power of
playing music

during a shoot, but we were putting
together a song list

in the car right before we went into
Alice.

They were songs I thought

maybe Alice might like.

But as we start to play them or blast
them

by mistake,

Laura said, no, no, no.

Alice really likes this music from the
20s, like for this French music.

And Laura put it on, and Alice was
taken away.

It sort of can enhance a shoot if you
have the right music and you have the

wrong music it's deadly,

it's bad.

Sometimes this is a surprise, when just
to have music

during a sitting it's just kind of

just

take someone away and let's them.

Relax

woke up in the morning in the hotel,
and I looked out, I saw there was not a

cloud in the sky.

And I just immediately know it's going
to be a tough shoot for me, because I'm outside,

and I count on

for the kind of work that I do.

I really count on overcast days,

either overcast or cloudy days, because
the flat light works really well for

me.

I love flat light,

it's very, very beautiful.

And then I can easily add a little bit
of direction

with a single strobe.

So when I woke up and looked out the
window and saw there wasn't a cloud in

the sky, I knew I was going to have,

you know, I knew it was going to be
difficult.

And I also knew it would be short.

Because as soon as the sun really came
up, as soon as we lost our shade in her

backyard or in her front yard, it would
be over.

It really would be over, because I
would be fighting the light

from then on.

I mean, it was coming up pretty fast

in our chute.

And in fact, we weren't supposed to
start till nine o'clock.

But I got her going earlier.

It was a little after eight or 830,
because I saw that the light was coming

up and it was really

going to be brutal.

And I literally was tucking ourselves
into areas of the yard where I had the

shade.

In some of the areas, I used some of
the natural light,

and I shaded her face with a silk

and tried to bring back

some light with it, with a little bit
of a strobe.

And I kind of liked what it was doing.

So one had the feeling looking in the
picture, that it was

natural light but there was a little
bit of control, especially on alice's face.

Was important to me that

we tried to use as much of the natural
light as possible with Alice.

It seemed like part of

the look

for Alice Waters.

You'll see in the alswater sheet that
I'm working with

a lot of people,

actually it's a small chute

on some level.

But a very important person that I
brought in was laura's Reuben, who was

a good friend of Alice Waters and a
good friend of mine.

And what you might try to do as an
exercise

is work with a friend

who maybe likes to style, or

likes to set design, or likes to move
furniture around,

work with them

in taking a portrait

of a friend or

a family member to help you

visualize and see what you're seeing.

And that's interesting.

I mean,

it's interesting to see what it's like
to collaborate with

someone who you like

being around, they don't even have to
have a real title or anything, and

help you construct and

put together

that image.