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In one sense, the photographers featured on the following pages are just like many of the readers of American Photo: Most are devoted, talented, avid amateurs. Some have even taken their appreciation for the art of photography to the next level, shooting as professionals, publishing books filled with their own images, and showing their work at art galleries.
In another sense, of course, these photographers are nothing like the rest of us. They are actors, actresses, and filmmakers -- celebrities who are famous for work that has nothing to do with the pictures they take. And yet photography is part of their everyday lives. Indeed, they inhabit a world that is based on imagery -- of both the moving and the still variety. They make their livings in front of the camera. It is through images that the public knows them.
Given all that, it makes perfect sense that they would want to pick up cameras themselves, to point them where they want to. Jeff Bridges turns the tables artistically when he brings his Widelux panoramic camera onto movie sets to take pictures of his costars; when the movie is finished, he often presents the entire film crew with books of his images. He now also features his work at the Rose Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Viggo Mortensen's passion for photography has led him to launch his own book-publishing company.
In addition to his film work, director Brett Ratner now shoots stills for Jordache and Jimmy Choo ad campaigns. The fact that Adrien Brody loves still photography shouldn't really be a surprise, since his mother, Sylvia Plachy, is a well-known photographer.
For all of the actors and filmmakers on the following pages, photography is more than a hobby. It is a means to an end. Being behind the camera allows each of these much-photographed people to regain a measure of control over their lives, to assert their creativity. In that sense, once again, they are very much like the rest of us.
The Photography of Viggo Mortensen, Brett Ratner, Jeff Bridges, Eva Mendes, Colm Feore, Aaron Eckhart, Adrien Brody, Julie Delpy, and Tim Roth
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| © Viggo Mortensen |
| A boy in repose. Click photo for more images. |
Viggo Mortensen
The varied artistic endeavors of this renaissance man are recorded in books by his own publishing company.
When it comes to Viggo Mortensen, costar Elijah Wood was right in deeming him a "Renaissance man." Besides acting, Mortensen can add poetry, music, painting, publishing, and -- most importantly -- photography to his list of talents. In 2002, Mortensen and his brother founded Perceval Press, an independent publishing company that has worked with photographers and writers, large and small. Perceval publishes Mortensen's abundant artistic exploits, often a mix of his photography and prose. Miyelo, which he published after working on Hidalgo, included ethereal, panoramic photos of the Lakota Native Americans and documentation about their tragic history. For Mortensen, photography and art are "a way of being in your life and paying attention -- participating in life by recording it, commenting on it, offering your own notions and responses." Although Mortensen's books always sell out and demand several reprints, Perceval still prints them in small runs; thus most people got their first glimpse of Mortensen's photography in the extra features on the DVD for The Lord of the Rings. Mortensen spent the 15 months of the film's production in New Zealand photographing the cast and crew both on and off set. He plastered his trailer with the photos, creating a sort of all-encompassing collage that (in true Mortensen fashion) recorded that specific time and place in his life. Many of these images, in addition to several of his paintings, were exhibited at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica, California, and can now be found in his book Signlanguage.
-Lindsay Sakraida
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