Bending the Light Page #6

push you to that next level.

(background chatter)

You can't teach people how to have an eye.

There have been these great

cases and that's really

the reward for a teacher.

When you can actually

turn that light switch on.

To bring that talent

forward is so exciting

and so rewarding at the end of the day

and you see that you've

actually changed someone's life.

That's great.

(camera clicking)

You still look great.

Wet your lips for me.

Now real strong, right down

the barrel of the lens here.

(camera clicking)

(atmospheric music)

Yeah that's better.

Chin up just a tiny bit.

In 1968, growing up in Kansas City,

I borrowed a friend's camera and I said,

I have third row seats to

Jimi Hendrix in concert

and I wanna take some pictures.

And I shot two rolls of film back then

and the following morning

processed the film

in his basement-turned-darkroom

and when I saw this image

come up magically on this

white piece of paper,

I was totally hooked.

In the early days,

all my pictures were

pretty interchangeable.

The lights were like

right over the camera.

They all looked like

postage stamps, so to say.

It really wasn't until I

started moving the light

off the center of camera.

My early shoot with Tom Waits for example.

And when I started creating

a relationship between my

harder, harsh shadows

and my strong highlights,

I started seeing something

that I found interesting

and I started thinking, "Well

you know I'm gonna try that

"on my next shoot" and

started to pursue that,

and then all of a sudden it

became part of my repertoire.

For me it was about having

irreverent disregard

for detail shadow, I was

never about the Codec moment.

I was really about

shaping and forming a face

with light and shadow,

and that's how I kinda developed my style.

- [Voiceover] Not bad

for a 48-year-old, right?

- He's gonna bring the gloves up.

We're gonna go mainly

just real dramatic light.

This is still the executioner.

Before The Alien. (laughs)

- [Bernard] This is history.

- [Greg] It is history.

- [Bernard] Before The Alien.

- [Greg] I know.

- Really, the executioner has retired.

- Yeah, well he's now The Alien.

So give me a kick in the

dark eye there, Brian.

Really good, right down the lens.

Angle the head just a little bit this way.

Perfect.

(camera clicking)

We live in an exciting time

and the overall picture

of photography has changed so

greatly from the early days.

Better, yeah, stronger.

After switching to digital,

I pretty much know when

I've got the picture

and that frees me up as an

artist to maybe get out of my

staid style and push myself

a little bit further.

There was a kid, there

was a doorman at the hotel

where I was staying that

was a model with one of the

agencies and he knew who I was

and he was getting off work

at four o'clock and I said,

"You wanna run uptown?

"I've got a camera to play

with for a couple of hours."

And I went up and I shot some

pictures with just natural

window light and a reflector

and I just couldn't believe

how well digital sees

light in low-luminance

and it made me realize that this is

obviously where everything is going.

Film never was capable

of making those captures.

(camera clicking)

Good.

Oh those are great.

That's fantastic.

- Do the stare down?

- Do the stare down right now.

(crew laughing)

Better, yeah.

- No wonder I've been beating these guys.

I've been scaring 'em!

- This will be pretty cool and

we'll get this all oiled up

and then sprayed.

- [Voiceover] Does he bullshit you?

- Sometimes, yeah, he bullshits you.

You gotta bullshit you

to sort of kind you over

to get you to the next level.

"You're doing well, you're doing well."

But he's still trying to

get the best, you know?

So he gets you to think that

you're almost there,

so that's the bullshit.

He's a big bullshitter, and that's good.

(camera clicking)

- Really piercing eyes

right through the lens.

One of the great things about

working with personalities

is the opportunity to realize

their vision sometimes.

One of the last times Michael

called me and he said,

"You know, Greg, I have

these pet tarantulas

"and they have just shed their skin."

He said "I think they

might be great for a shot.

"I don't know what we'll do

but can I bring the bodies?"

Because they're just like a shell,

like snake when it sheds it skin.

Then we actually ended up gaffer

taping them to his forehead

and this became one of his

iconic images later on in life.

The stories and the memories

that I have, the memoirs

of all the years are extraordinary.

I have such fond memories

like of Betty Davis

and the times that we spent

together editing pictures

sitting in her living room

and the stories that went

back and forth.

I share them with friends

and all when we're together,

funny little quips and stories

but it's something that

I think is really between

the talent and myself.

The styles today have changed so greatly.

They're much looser.

They're much more of a casual nature

which was never what I did.

See now let's open that

shoulder up to me, there you go.

And now bring your face

up, and now three-quarters

come out this way just a

little bit there, that's good.

Now come into her.

All the way, there you go.

And you don't need to look at me,

you can look off right here, there you go.

Open your chest up to me

even more, there you go.

More.

I think my work is very

staged, very calculated.

Extremely orchestrated, it's

really about fine-tuning,

more like a painting, like a sculpture

and that's really the

style that I developed

and that's what I became

kind of known for.

We'll get a chill down

here, let's just go outside

for five minutes and freshen

up, we'll come back in,

we'll look at some videos.

I see more emotions from

my teaching these days.

Thank you all very much.

On Friday night which is the

last day of my workshops,

I put together a slideshow

of 10 to 12 of each of the students' work.

Seeing that on the big

screen for the first time

and looking at their work,

then I get really emotional.

(blowing wind)

One of the things I always

talk to my students about

is that never think you've

taken that successful picture.

I know that every time I look

at my work I find something

that could be improved, could be changed,

could be challenged.

And I think that's what keeps driving me.

Once you're so confident

that it's all gonna be

a perfect show and a home

run, that's when you fail.

(moody atmospheric music)

- The lens I most recently designed

was a correctional system

of the Subaru Telescope

located in Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

The primary mirror is eight-meters-wide,

and my lens corrects the

light that the mirror absorbs.

It's a very high-accuracy lens.

One of the biggest in the world.

And it took two years to make it.

- [Voiceover] What got you

interested in this line of work?

- I liked watching movies and TV very much

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