GREG PORTRAIT FINAL_Flattened copy.jpg — Greg Gorman

Greg is a well established photographer in LA and known for his iconic portraits and nudes. In this interview we talked about shooting celebrities, how to shape light, the reason to create books, equipment, favorite travel destinations and much more.
*Image: © Andreas Bitesnich*

Thomas Berlin: Greg, thanks for the opportunity for the interview, Two years ago we met in Frankfurt …

Greg Gorman: …. yes, I’m often in Germany. It's one of my favorite places to visit.

Thomas Berlin: You are a prominent portrait photographer and you're taking pictures of celebrities, mostly in Hollywood. Could your style be described as classic?

Greg Gorman: Well, I would say that I'm probably best known for my distinctive black and whites and the strong relationship between my highlights and shadows in terms of sculpting light.

Thomas Berlin: You have been in the industry for a long time. At what age did you start to be interested in photography?

Greg Gorman: 1968. I took my first pictures when I borrowed a friend's camera to shoot a Jimi Hendrix concert in Kansas City, Missouri, where I was born in 1949.

Thomas Berlin: As a visitor to enjoy the concert or to take photos as a young professional?

Greg Gorman: No, I was just a visitor. I was sitting in the audience in the third row with a camera with only a 50-millimeter lens, but the following day I processed the pictures in my friend's dark room and I was hooked when I saw this image coming up on this blank piece of paper, but that's how it all began.

Thomas Berlin: Great. And that was the decisive moment to become a photographer?

Greg Gorman: It was certainly the stimulus for becoming a photographer. It's how it all began more or less. I enrolled in a class at the University of Kansas where I was going to school and the only course they offered was a course in Photojournalism. And slowly, but surely, I moved to California, got a degree in film at the University of Southern California, but I ended up gravitating back towards my still photography roots, but now coupled with Hollywood.

Thomas Berlin: Was your interest in musicians, actors, etc. a reason that you focused on photography?

Greg Gorman: It was really people. But ‘people’ translated in Hollywood to shooting people in the industry, so it all evolved around music, sports, film, and even some advertising work that I did during that period.

Thomas Berlin: How is photographing successful actors different from shooting a normal person? Is it more difficult because actors have different requirements, or is it easier because they are not afraid to be in front of a camera?

Greg Gorman: I don’t know. The actors are less afraid of being in front of a camera than other people. They seem to be most comfortable playing a character on the big screen other than themselves, but sometimes when you have to strip that character and that facade away from an actor, they become just as nervous as your local guy. So, I think obviously with shooting celebrities, it's more complicated in the sense that it usually involves a larger crew of people. You've got managers and agents and publicists and personal assistants and makeup and hair and styling. It's a much bigger production than just say taking a friend of yours out and taking pictures.

Thomas Berlin: Because you're talking about big productions: when I saw you in Frankfurt that evening, you did some portraits, and it was very nice to see that you only needed a few moments to find out what the best side is and how the light is to be aligned. You took the pictures in a short time and edited them in Lightroom within a few minutes and you were done. I think it was just improvises for that evening and it's different in your regular shoots, isn't it?

Greg Gorman: Yes Thomas, they are much longer. Much more involved and entail much more work, but the idea is basically the same concept. It's just more extended obviously.

Thomas Berlin: How long do you need for a regular shooting?

Greg Gorman: However long they are willing to give me. So, it varies. Sometimes it's a short window of time that I get, and sometimes I get a bigger length of time. There's been shoots such as with Bette Midler that lasted three days. Three consecutive days. Normal shootings can range from 3-4 hours to as much as eight or 10 hours a day. And I've done shoots that have been 15 minutes, 30 minutes. It depends sometimes on how much time the talent has or what the situation is. When I was working for many years on Motion Pictures, you got the little window in between when they were changing sets or moving to a different sound stage. So in my line of work, you have to be fairly adaptable to their whims, sometimes the parameters of what the person's willing to give you or how much time the publicists would allow for a photo shoot.

Thomas Berlin: Do you gather information about the person you are going to portray and create a concept in advance or do you work more spontaneously?

Greg Gorman: A little bit of all of those things, Thomas. You know at my age of 71, most of the older celebrities, I usually know, or I've worked with, familiar with so to speak. I don't really do so much work commercially anymore, but most of the time I knew who they were. I could look up and see a little bit about them or hear about them if I didn't know who they were. But I didn't really like to see too many pictures of a person before I would shoot, because I liked to formulate my own concept of how I wanted to see them photographed. But I never really liked too much influence from outside sources. But one of the elements that I incorporated into a lot of my shoots was a full-time chef at my studio who always prepared a meal. We almost always broke break bread prior to a shoot, having a nice meal, which always made the situation more comfortable. It gave me a chance if I wasn't hanging out in the makeup room, which I did often times to spend time with them trying to come up or down to their level to get a communication going. And at the same time studying which angles I may be wanting to play up in the highlights and which angles I may be wanting to play down in the shadows.

Thomas Berlin: Greg, given your many years of experience in this business, what is particularly important when taking portraits?

Greg Gorman: Thomas, that’s a big part. I mean the technical stuff, most people can learn, but a lot of what it takes to get a connected portrait is being able to connect with the person, win their trust and confidence, and you do that by sharing your vision with them. Showing them on the back of your camera, what you're getting, and getting their trust and confidence. In the old days before digital, this was done in the form of polaroids you would shoot. Because once you have their trust and confidence, the chances of you getting a better portrait are much greater than not sharing your vision with them and making them feel a little bit more insecure. We spoke about that a little bit about the difference between shooting a celebrity and a normal person. It's basically not a big difference. They're nervous too and they're not sure, and so the more you can eliminate those elements from the equation, the better chance you have of getting a better portrait.

Thomas Berlin: They are uneasy because they want to look beautiful.

Greg Gorman: Yes, they want to look good and they want to make sure you know what you're doing. If they don't know the photographer, sometimes that makes them more nervous as well, in addition to their own personal insecurity. So, it's one of the reasons, a lot of us that did what I had done for a living have our own little stable of movie stars that we work with all the time, because when we would start a session, we could start up here instead of down there at the bottom. Because we already have a relationship going, we know which angles are working, which angles aren't, we know any little idiosyncrasies that might need to be put aside, or you need to be aware of, when you're shooting.

Thomas Berlin: Greg, do you remember a special encounter in your shootings with someone that you think back to a lot, or think that it influenced the way you work?

Greg Gorman: On a side note, Thomas, I know that when my career was really taking off at the beginning of the ‘80s and I shot the ad art for Motion Picture campaigns like ‘Tootsie’, ‘TheBig Chill’ and ‘Scarface’, I went to New York to visit my late friend Antonio Lopez, who was a very famous fashion illustrator. He said, “So, Greg, what are you doing?” And I was a 30 something year old saying, “Oh, I just shot the posters for ‘Tootsie’ and ‘The Big Chill’ and ‘Scarface’.” I’m waiting for him to say to me, “God, that's great, Greg, that's fantastic.” Instead, he said, “Well, that's great, but what are you doing for yourself?” And I realized at that point, Thomas, that I was kind of a hired gun. I was creating all this art, but it was art for someone else. So that's when he said that if I wanted to have a career in photography and longevity, I needed to have an outlet outside the realm of my commercial work. And that's, as you know, when I started doing my male and female nudes. Maintaining my signature style, but transferring it by pulling the camera back, shedding people of their clothes, but still playing with the dynamic range between my highlights and shadows.

Thomas Berlin: Because you are shooting both men and women, are they different? Maybe, it´s easier to shoot men because you don't have to idealize them like women?

Greg Gorman: I don't know if that's necessarily true. It's just the human anatomy which is different. So, in terms of how you light and pose someone is quite different. I think they both present their own challenges in terms of how you perceive them and I think it's also about what you want to say. I've often said it's not what you see in the highlights, but what you don't see in the shadows that oftentimes will bring a person back to looking at a picture a second time.

Thomas Berlin: Regarding the light, do you have some specific aspects that have influenced your work?

Greg Gorman: Well, I work now pretty much with fixed lights, with LEDs. Even in the old days, although I shot mostly with flash, I started shooting fixed lights even earlier on in my career. I shot a lot with a 6k HMI from Arri, which is a big daylight balanced tungsten light. Today, I shoot with LEDs, from an English based company, Rotolight, who continue to produce truly outstanding lights-the benchmark of the industry. They just came out with a Titan X2, and an X1, which are like giant soft boxes-truly fantastic! You really see exactly what you're getting, which makes it a lot easier. And you also don't miss those moments in between because you're not waiting for that flash to pop.

Thomas Berlin: Is the LED light strong enough?

Greg Gorman: Yeah, they are. And the new ones are much stronger than the earlier ones, for example.

Thomas Berlin: Thanks. How many sources of light do you use?

Greg Gorman: I tend to like to work with a single point light source as my main focus and then additive and subtractive fill with superb light modifiers from California Sunbounce- a German based company outside Hamburg actually. So, I'll tend to work with a single light, which is like working with the sun, let's say, or working with a Rotolight, and then I'll use a negative filler or a positive filler and sometimes with a silk also made by California Sunbounce. So, I'll either work with a black reflector to subtract light or either a silver or white depending on what I'm looking for. So, a lot of the times I try to work with just a single point light source. If I have obviously a problem with the background, the subject bleeding too much into the background, sometimes I'll light a little bit of the background. Or occasionally work with a hair light but generally my point light source takes care of the hair.

Thomas Berlin: Do you prefer working in a studio or on location?

Greg Gorman: Well now I like working on a location. I'm probably more well known as a studio photographer than a location photographer. But I shoot a lot more on location now. Like anything you get bored and so you mix it up.

Thomas Berlin: You are working mostly in black and white. What is the reason?

Greg Gorman: Well, I've always felt that black and white kind of strips everything bare. You don't have all those colors to kind of camouflage a solid photograph. My new book is basically a mixture of color and black and white, so that people see I do shoot color.

Thomas Berlin: Do you think in black and white when you're taking black and white images? Or do you decide it later and convert it from color to black and white?

Greg Gorman: That's a good question Thomas. Basically, when you're shooting, I think that you need to have a certain understanding, a certain concept of whether you want to see the picture in color or black and white. Like with black and white I'll tend to light a little bit harder, a little bit more destructively, and with color I'll tend to light sometimes a little bit more open, not blocking up my shadows as much. It's the same as in the old days when you were shooting negative film, you knew it had a greater latitude and transparency, you knew needed to be more precise. Pretty much the same in digital. I tend to be more forgiving with my color captures and less forgiving with my black and white, and that influences how hard I'll go with the light.

Thomas Berlin: You started not digital but with film of course, and now?

Greg Gorman: I haven't shot film in a long time but when I go back and review the images that you'll see in my new book, it's mostly film. And there's a certain inherent charm in film that digital lacks. I mean film was never that precise, and there's a certain inherent charm in that, in terms of sharpness, in terms of movement, in terms of grain structure. It had many different elements to deal with than today where everything can be just railroaded into a plastic modem of artificiality and perfection, so to speak. Even though I tend to shoot at higher ISOs and tend to not shoot quite as strict as with a lot of the newer cameras. I'm actually shooting with a truly great new camera now.

Thomas Berlin: Which one?

Greg Gorman: I’m shooting with the Fuji GFX 100 which I really love. It not only produces a big beautiful file, but for a medium format camera, not only focusses quickly but shoots well at higher ISO’s. It's a great camera. The first of its kind that impressed me. I'm working with the Fuji GFX 100 camera, Rotolights and California Sunbounce as my go to package!

Thomas Berlin: Great. Which lens is your favorite?

Greg Gorman: I'm really favoring the 250mm, F4, a really long one. Because I can come in really, really close. It's a pretty cool lens. They have also a really fast 110 which is a beautiful lens. I have a 120 macro which is great. I work as well with a couple of intermediary zooms, which are great for personality portraiture.

Thomas Berlin: Greg, let's move on to another topic: Since you're also a figure study photographer, I'm interested in whether the social climate in America has changed in recent years or decades.

Greg Gorman: I think that people in America are still as hypocritical as they ever were. Much different than Europe. I did a book on one of my boyfriends a long time ago called ‘Just Between Us’ and I can tell you that the first people to criticize the book were the first ones behind closed doors looking at it. You know, that kind of hypocrisy is typical for our country which is very sad. I think they're probably more relaxed today than they used to be, but still there's a certain inherent stigma with nudity.

Thomas Berlin: So, nude pictures wouldn't be seen in a gallery?

Greg Gorman: Yes they are. I had shows with that book as well.

Thomas Berlin: What about social media? What is the influence on photography in general, and regarding photographer jobs?

Greg Gorman: Well, it's a huge influence. And you know I'm a bit of a dinosaur, so I'm old school and I'm not the most adept with Instagram but obviously that's the medium of choice for photography and photographers who want to get their work seen by a broad audience and influencers these days. I’m more of a Facebook guy-connecting with my friends, more old school. I just don’t have the energy to invest in that constant posting. At 71, I am not looking to impress or for that matter for more work! (LOL)

But occasionally I post on Instagram and I see right away I get way more hits than I did with my Facebook which is limited more to my friends. But I think that social media has certainly influenced the realm of photography. Everybody is a photographer today. They all have a cell phone and a version of Photoshop to prove it. But they'd be hard-pressed to duplicate some of the captures that they've caught on camera when everything is automated.

I’m tired of going out to dinner with people that are on their phones the entire time you're having a meal, and taking pictures and posting the whole time. It kind of takes some fun out of the experience. I mean I like to sometimes just remember things for what they were and not necessarily need to have a record of it.

Thomas Berlin: Well, anyone can take photos and share them on Instagram, that's the positive aspect. But only as big as a large postage stamp there. And with a limited aspect ratio. Absolutely no comparison to a larger print, or at least an image on a photographer's website. That brings me to the question of what is the best place for your pictures. Is it a large print wall or a magazine?

Greg Gorman: In a gallery. I like seeing my pictures on the wall in a gallery. I think that's certainly where they were originally intended for, and that's where I like seeing them; in a fine art setting.

Thomas Berlin: You don't work with fixed image formats aspect ratios, right?

Greg Gorman: Absolutely. I don't believe in a fixed format. I always believe in cropping an image for the image itself. And I think that when people say you know this is going to be a 13x19 print, or a 16x20, they're sacrificing the integrity of their images. I think you should always crop your images for subject matter and content, not for the size of a piece of paper. I've had many shows, where the frames were 16 by 20 or whatever, but the prints could have wider borders on the side or more narrower on the top, that's just what it is.

Thomas Berlin: So, you are very uncompromising in order to have a good result. When are you satisfied with the picture? What is a good picture in your opinion?

Greg Gorman: I think a good picture is one that strikes an emotional chord with you. I mean there's a lot of things that make a picture successful, and I think it really relies on the viewer of the image. How the viewer receives your work. In terms of if I feel satisfied, it's when I feel that I've captured the essence of a person's soul. And feel like I've connected. I can look at a portrait and say, “Yeah. That's the person I photographed.” And that's not always there. Sometimes they give it to you, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. It depends on how up their guard is and how much they're willing to be open and accessible. And that's part of what your job is as a personality protagonist to play psychologist, to be able to come up or down to their level.

Thomas Berlin: Did you have favorite photographers when you started looking at other photographers' work?

Greg Gorman: I was always a huge fan of Helmut Newton's and we became good friends actually and I'm still friendly with his wife, June. I've had several shows in his museum in Berlin in June’s Room. And I always loved Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Hiro, Bourdin, Brassai, and Bresson. So, there's a lot of Masters out there whose work I really love. Yeah.

Thomas Berlin: Are these photographers role models for you?

Greg Gorman: They were more stimulus models I would say. You know I loved George Hurrell’s stunning portraits. He was certainly a bit of a role model.

Thomas Berlin: Looking to the contemporary photography, what photographers do you like especially, or you find remarkable?

Greg Gorman: I am probably moved today more by photographers outside the field that I work in. Photojournalists such as James Nachtwey’s work really impresses me considering the situations he must work under and the extraordinary impactful images he comes up with. I’m also a big fan, of Jane Evelyn Atwood- a great French photojournalist. In Germany I am friends with and a huge fan of F.C. Gundlach.

Thomas Berlin: Before the interview, you mentioned your new book. Can you tell me a bit about the content?

Greg Gorman: Yes. I published a book basically on all of my personality work over the course of 50 years. I published so many books of male and female nudes, and I did a book on my l.a.Eyeworks campaign. I did a book of street photography called ‘Outside the Studio’. And I did a book of my male portraits and nudes recently called ‘Private Works’. So, this was kind of a chance to look back at my whole career and it's really a lot of my greatest hits, including a lot of unpublished work. And so, it took me about four years to edit and get everything scanned and organized, and then, my creative director, Gary Johns, did a beautiful job of laying it out. It was published by the late Hendrik teNeues in Germany actually. So, it's kind of fun to have a German publisher. I had a great working experience there as well with Arndt Jasper.

Thomas Berlin: Greg, in general, how do you approach a new book project? What is the meaning of a separate book for a photographer and what was e.g. the motivation when you published your first book?

Greg Gorman: Well, I was asked by Michael Warlow in London at a Xmas of the band Duran Duran. I hadn’t thought about it till than and after that, it has been a fun process. And now I just published my 12th book actually. It's more or less a labor of love and it's kind of a nice thing to have that footprint when I'm pushing up daisies- that there's a body of work out there that consecutive generations of photographers and the like can hopefully enjoy. And I think when we look back, we look at a lot of the great photographers that have gone, that have published really beautiful compilations of their pictures, which is a nice addition to just being able to see the work in galleries.

Thomas Berlin: I think another, but more technical, aspect of creating a book is that you have to curate your images and choose the very best from the best. How do you manage this process? Because I think you love all of your pictures. But how do you choose from them?

Greg Gorman: That's a good question. It’s kind of a difficult process. I edited the pics down to well over a thousand pictures, but then the book has only about 350 pictures in it. So, it was a tough process and even before the thousand, I had edited down to probably 20,000. I work very closely with an art director, Gary Johns who basically knows me very well. So between the two of us we were able to kind of hone in on what we thought should be the focal point of the book- what we want people to walk away with when they see the pictures and know about me. So, that's kind of how we looked at it from a perspective point of view in terms of putting it together.

Thomas Berlin: But only you decide what comes into your book, right?

Greg Gorman: Absolutely. I’m a control freak. I don't want somebody telling me what should be in there who hasn’t lived my life or been behind my camera when I took the picture. Essentially they are not inside the head of Greg Gorman or his personal vision

Thomas Berlin: You seem interested in many things, what do you like to do besides photography?

Greg Gorman: Well, I made wine for many years. And I stopped making wine in 2018. And what I do in terms of fun, I love to go fishing, I love being in the countryside, I love being outdoors. I'm missing that tremendously. I love traveling and I really love being in Europe. I usually spend three to four months a year in Europe and of course I had all my trips canceled for this year. I actually had a beautiful Scandinavian tour set for March and April which had to be put on hold.

Thomas Berlin: Do you favor destinations in Europe?

Greg Gorman: Well, you know I love Hamburg. It's one of my favorite cities. Definitely would count that on one hand: Bologna and Verona in Italy, Graz and Vienna in Austria, London. And also Budapest, Prague and Barcelona. I love traveling. I'm looking forward to that happening when everything gets opened up again and we get rid of the asshole in office.

Thomas Berlin: I hope that too. Greg, thank you very much for your time and kindness to share your experience.

Greg Gorman: Thank you! Thank you for showing the interest and making the interview. I look forward to seeing it.

You find Greg on his website. Your feedback is welcome here.