All language subtitles for 5. Studio vs. Location

I had a studio.

I had a glamorous, big, beautiful
studio in New York,

and it had

this wonderful

cement floor and a cement wall.

for the longest time, I was looking at
Irving pen's work and just loved how

simple and

direct and strong it was.

And it became my, sort of,

my background.

And I did several portraits there.

They're very, very graphic.

I mean, they don't have too much to do
with the people.

They just have to do with the

studio and the

idea of presentation.

It is what I do do when I go into the
studio, the very least I know how to compose.

And these pictures are very graphic and
very composed.

I think I've learned after all these
years, and I'm an observer.

And if I don't have enough to sort of
grab on to in a studio,

I don't have enough to tell a story for
myself, personally in the studio.

I like,

I like a story.

I like

I like to be somewhere.

I'd like to

see something unfold.

If you're in a studio.

For me, this is a personal

issue.

If you're in the studio,

that's what you're getting, not that
you're making it up anymore, you're not

really making it up.

And things still do unfold, and things
still happen, but

they're not as

interesting to me.

I just like to watch

something.

I'd like to be somewhere.

I love to love the light changing.

I love

observing.

I just feel like

at a certain point the studio

doesn't give me any of that.

I

never felt comfortable

as a studio photographer, but I was
enamored and loved Irving pen's

portraits in the studio.

So this floor in this wall sort of
became my

Irving pen

exercise.

And

in this particular series

of photographs, which I now think of
coming from

having that studio and having that
floor on that wall,

to me, I look at them now, and I see
the floor on the wall more than I see

to people.

But they really are

very good examples of very simple

using the perspective of

the horizon line, where the horizon
line hits,

you see close,

and that's really

coming down lower to look at the
wheelchair

from a lower angle.

Al Pacino and Robert ta Nero, I can see
that I'm basically just standing up and just

using my own height to shoot back at
the people.

And I'm sort of

definitely seeing

where's that horizon line hitting in
the photograph.

And I'm using that as part of my
composition.

I'm not even

so aware I'm doing that.

And listen to, child who's a dancer.

She's like a diagonal

cutting across

the horizon line

in the back.

And you see much more floor.

So this is just a simple

exercise.

By looking at.

These

are four of probably many, many
photographs I took in that studio

where the floor and the wall became
part of the composition.

I think on some level,

having worked

the studio like this, I became very
aware of how I wanted to get out of the

studio.

Because

I know one thing about myself is I can
always back myself up with composition.

And I feel like it's a little bit of a
crutch when it comes to portraits.

And even though

I kind of like the simplicity of the
portrait that way,

I'm not too sure it says enough about
the subject.

And I miss the storytelling aspect

in my photographs that I love the most.

You can get that on location, and it is
a lot harder.

But I think in these pictures you can
see the simplicity of

composition.

I know that my photographs, when they're

on location, if they're in someone's

house and someone sitting in a chair
that they sit in, or

we're in a place that has something to
do with that person, it's going to be a

much stronger photograph for me than
for me.

Personally, in the studio,

I sort of use the studio as passport
pictures or something.

I mean, I'm not bad at it.

If you get someone like LeBron James
and you want to do

sort of a body study,

I think the studio

is a very handsome place, a place to
work.

I think I've learned that

being on location.

I mean, I'm looking at the Agnes Martin
picture.

She still had not agreed to let me take
her picture.

And I went out to Tao st, New Mexico
with the idea that

she still hadn't agreed.

It's just one of those things.

I had lunch with her,

and then she said I could come to her
studio.

And I went to her studio the next
morning

and walked in, and there was like this
bed, and there was the canvas.

And

I said, well, what do you do when you
come in here?

She said, well,

I come over and I sit here, and I wait
to be inspired.

I love that.

I just love that.

Isn't that what we all do?

We wait to be inspired.

And so I said, would you just sit
there?

So she sat there,

and

she's like, one of my favorite
photographs

of her just sitting there, it's what we
all

were waiting, to be inspired.

She thinks of herself as a writer.

No, she's, of course, so much more than
that to us, to all of us.

It was like, I asked her how she would
like to be photographed.

And she said,

well,

I like to sit on the rocks in central
park.

And so I said, ok,

which rock do you like this?

There are a lot of rocks in central
park.

The stories are more complicated than
that because, you know, the rocks in

some parking a lot.

To her, she feels like the rocks were
there before, all mankind.

But I found a rock that I thought was
kind of nice, and

it was rather large rock, over

by the pond.

So we went out and did some photographs
of hers it's kind of sitting on that

rock.

And

they were nice.

They were nice.

And then we went back to her apartment,
and she sat down at her desk.

And I just looked at her, or at her
desk, and I just said,

this is great.

This is.

And I just took some photographs of her
sitting at her desk,

and

it's quiet.

We're so complicated as human beings.

There are so many parts to us,

you know.

It's really

one of the

complications

of doing a portrait of someone

is that

I just

can't get it in one photograph.

I don't know if I believe it.

I think you have,

this portrait is going to be like

a small piece of that person.

And it's also

my point of view.

So when I look at this picture of
Gloria in the room at our desk, I

think, well, that is part of Gloria,
but that's not like Gloria, you know.

And I'm glad to see that part of Gloria.

This is a difficult assignment, because

I'm not sure what I think about it
myself,

but you'll find out yourself that if
you photograph someone

with a simple background, versus

a location that means something to the
subject, it'd be interesting to see

what your results are.

You see how it affects the subject.

Being in a place

that

there's a studio like feeling

can be just a wall.

And then try being in a place that

means something to the subject, or

that is

a location that

has something to do with the subject