The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1941)

qEORQE htRRcli An interview with one of the motion picture's foremost portrait photographers Perhaps the unusual effects in HurrelVs photographs may be attributed to the fact that he started as an artist, having studied painting and drawing at Chicago Art Institute and Academy of Fine Arts. In 1925 he came to California with Edgar Alwyn Payne, the landscape painter, and established a studio at Laguna Beach, where his contact with the many artists in that colony proved to be a fine influence. He became interested in photography, and as he delved further into it he began to find it more exciting than painting. He started devoting more and more time to it by putting in some actual groundwork at different studios. At last, satisfied that he had the ability to go ahead as a photographer, Hurrell opened a small studio in Los Angeles and soon after many a motion picture star followed the lead of Ramon Navarro, who had been his first subject. MGM Studios became interested in his ivork and persuaded him to close his studio and move over to their gallery. He remained there three years. About this time Hurrell decided that he would again like an establishment of his own, so he opened a studio in Hollywood, where he has since been photographing for the studios on special assignment. His efficiency in emphasizing in his photographs the dramatic ability of his subjects is well known. The other day when Hurrell dropped into the office we stopped him for a few minute's interview, which is included in the text that follows. Hurrell is a practical sort of fellow and does not lay claim to ''having a rabbit up his sleeve.'" He can't give any rules and regulations about obtaining good portraits, because he feels rules are a handicap. Hurrell is almost ready to open his new studios at 333 No. Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, California. He invites any of the members of 659 to call and says they will find a cordial welcome. In this business too little consideration is given to the making of prints and printing is treated too lightly. It should be given the most serious consideration. Take the two photographs being used in this issue (see pages 4 and 5 ) , if they had been sent to any laboratory they would not have had the roundness we see in these prints. The men in these laboratories understand their business and are skilled craftsmen, but they don't have the time to use their imagination and visualize just what the pho tographer tries to convey. It is too bad that the photographer cannot carry straight through and make the prints, but from a production point of view this would be impossible. If it could be done the photographer would be able to accomplish what he started out to do. Tone quality is produced by balance in lighting and exposing the negative to get that balance. A photograph technically may be over or under-exposed. That of Rita Hayworth, for instance, is under-exposed, or would be considered so if coming out of a lab. Then it is largely in the printing that we get the half-tones. To get these it is necessary to think of them and work for them. In the studio lab the idea is to send out prints as light as possible for reproduction in newspapers, with little or no thought being given to their production in magazines. Therefore, the quality is not right for the magazines. Unfortunately prints cannot be made for the particular place where they are to be used. If this could be done much better results would be obtained. I do not have any rules for making pictures and have never stopped to consider them. I just like certain kinds of lighting effects and go about getting them as I go along. I have always been fond of black areas because they seem to give composition and design in the print and, while blacks are taboo in newspaper work, there are still many cases where black areas will produce brilliant effects, so I use black backgrounds and shadows and I think of design and composition more than anything else as I work. I never try to pose a person, but let the subject act normal. If a photographer starts posing his subjects he is apt to get them in position they are not familiar with, as everyone has a different way of standing, sitting, leaning, etc., and cannot be told to do it differently without an awkward effect. I try to get a person to do whatever he or she would do to suit the mood of the clothes being worn, clothes having as much to do as anything else with the mood of the sitter. In sport clothes the mood might be to recline, while in formal dress such a thing would not be thought of. Here again I avoid rules. If I started to analyze too much what I do and why I do it, it would handicap me and might result in pictures being too much alike, which I try to avoid. By depending entirely upon my mood and my reaction at the time and a few gags to get me started I get more per sonality into the picture and composition and technique seem to be automatic. After a long period you instinctively do form some ideas as to certain lighting effects for certain results and try to have these ready when the sitter arrives, because in the picture business we have to work so speedily. Where it is a question of speed, everything else must be subjected to it, but I find by careful planning beforehand we get some pretty good pictures. It is unfortunate that so much haste is necessary in our particular work. We are expected to shoot half a dozen pictures in about three seconds and then if they are not good, or as good as the sitter expected, we are to blame for not doing a good job, where in reality the pictures would have been what the sitter expected if he or she could have given us a second or two more. But working fast is part of the requirements of our job. The shot of Rita Hayworth was made very hastily at the end of a commercial job for Auto-Lite Spark Plugs. I made half a dozen shots, one of which I sent to Esquire. The photograph of Joan Crawford is just one picked at random from her latest sitting. Rita Hayworth and John Crawford are two entirely different personalities, which is the reason the photographs are so different. Joan Crawford, to me, always has been the most decorative subject I have ever photographed. There is a strength and vitality about her that gets across and prevails even in the finished print. If I were a sculptor I would be satisfied with just doing Joan Crawford all the time. Everyone has something that lends itself to a good photograph, whether it be charm, features or personality. It is the photographer's job to emphasize the fine points to the camera's eye. Frontispiece As many of our readers have asked for some data on William Mortensens studies which have been appearing in the magazine. Mr. Mortensen has kindly supplied the following information pertaining to the photograph on page 2, which we are including here rather than mar the beauty of the photograph with any text: Camera 4x5 Graf lex, series D; Dagor 7inch lens; film, Eastman Super-ortho X; exposure onefifth second at F16; developed in Defender 6D for 50 minutes; lighting, modified basic; printed on Kodalure G; print developer D-72; finished by Abrasion-Tone. International Photographer for September, 1941