Steve Schapiro Talks Photography: Then and Now

Steve Schapiro: Martin Luther King, Alabama, 1965

Via Women's wear Daily

By Susan Stone
November 26, 2012


“I still haven’t done my best photograph, in my mind, at this point. I’m still looking for a photograph which I really feel has lasting quality,” insisted Schapiro, sitting down for a chat at Berlin’s CWC Gallery, the city’s newest outpost of Camera Work. Surrounded by glass-framed photos from his long and varied career — a Factory party with Edie, Andy and the gang, Muhammad Ali shirtless and playing Monopoly, Barbra Streisand in perfect profile — he paged through his latest book “Then and Now,” published by Hatje Cantz.

The book, which recently launched in Germany and is scheduled for a Friday release in the U.S., includes many never-before-seen images from Schapiro’s archives of journalistic work, celebrity portraits and movie-set shoots, as well as some of his recent forays into digital photography. The 50 years’ worth of pictures reveal incredible access and intimate insights.

As a freelance photojournalist in the Sixties, Shapiro worked for the magazines Life and Look, and later shot the first cover for People. His photos hang in the halls of the Smithsonian and Atlanta’s High Museum of Art and feature in countless private collections and galleries, as well as several books. Many of his pictures are powered by that undefinable, invaluable quality that propels so many notables to the top — charisma. Schapiro says it’s not always evident at first glance, citing a shoot with a famous top model as an example.

“We were going to photograph her, and we’re in the Grand Canyon, and we’re driving to it. And she’s, like, incredibly famous. And I’m looking in the [rearview] mirror and I’m saying, ‘This is isn’t going to work at all,’” he says, recalling a shoot with Christie Brinkley. “And the moment we started shooting, it was perfect. So you can’t always tell.”

What is evident is that his images also have a cinematic quality, so he was a natural to take behind-the-scenes portraits on some of the great films, including “Taxi Driver,” “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Godfather.” But whether on the streets or film shoots, he says he wasn’t always aware of when he had a hit in his lens, or that his mountains of daily work would end up as collectibles.

“Basically, this little guy took all these pictures, and now I have them. This little guy was a workaholic, which was great. Because he left me all this stuff,” laughs Schapiro.

The once brightly colored but now fading orange band on Schapiro’s wrist proves that the little guy is still working hard. It’s from the Beloved sacred art and music festival in Oregon, one of the venues he’s visited for his current book project called “Bliss.” Together with his son, who is keenly spiritual, Schapiro is making the rounds of such events internationally, camping in tents and snapping participants reveling in the music and community, for the work in progress. This veteran of several youthquakes says there’s something missing in the current generation of seekers compared with those of the Sixties. “You were very much aware of what was happening in the world. And I would say that in terms of this grouping, there’s less interest in the outside world entirely,” he muses, noting a lack of interest in politics as well.

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For a man known for his poignant photos of Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy, politics are still important, but politicians of today hold little appeal, nor do contemporary celebrities whose schedules and speech are highly controlled by publicists, Schapiro says. Once, he spent days or even weeks with his subjects, building relationships that developed into great photos. Now, he says, “if it’s not a cover, you probably spend two hours, and people have to keep changing their clothes every 15 minutes so that it looks in print as if you’ve been with them a long period of time. And you have usually a handler sitting there saying, ‘Oh no, wait a minute, I have to fix your hair — no you can’t put a cigarette — no cigarettes,’” he says, dropping his voice into an intent whisper to imitate the commentary of an intent p.r. agent.

Turning to review the famous faces he’s captured and the moments he’s frozen forever in black and white, he says he can’t really explain what makes a photograph have lasting power. It could be an emotional quality or an intuitive feeling or immaculate design. “Certain pictures get better with time.”


Related:  Steve Schapiro, Then and Now: Rare Images from a Photography Legend

Steve Schapiro, Then and Now: Rare Images from a Photography Legend

Steve Schapiro

left: Selma Marchers On the Road, 1965, right: Martin Luther King Jr., Selma March 1965

"Those who joined the Selma March could hold the flag high. It was a long symbolic walk and the possibility of violence was always there. Dr. King, the symbol of the non-violent revolution seemed to scour the crowds with a portent of what might follow."

Via Time LightBox
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
By Feifei Sun | @feifei_sun


Just the list of people Steve Schapiro has photographed during his career reads like a Who’s Who of the most influential politicians, celebrities and newsmakers in American history over the last five decades. But that Schapiro captured his subjects during their pivotal and seminal moments—Robert F. Kennedy during his 1968 presidential campaign; Marlon Brando on the set of The Godfather; Andy Warhol and muse Edie Sedgwick in The Factory, among others—lends his photographs an added significance. They aren’t just remarkable portraits of remarkable people, but snapshots into our country’s historical and cultural milestones.

Schapiro’s output over his more than 50-year career has been prolific, and many people have probably seen one of his photographs whether they realize it or not. But his new book, Then and Now, gives readers a look at Schapiro’s lesser-known work; the majority of pictures has never been published. “There were so many pictures that I loved but didn’t fit with the format of my previous books, so this was a chance to bring forth that work,” he says. The book is comprised of single images shown over a spread, as well as spreads of disparate images that share a composition or theme—one such example has a portrait of Martin Scorcese holding a gun and grapes on the left page, and a portrat of Mia Farrow holding a baby on the right. “I wanted to make a book that was interesting on every page,” says Schapiro. “That evolved into the idea of working with double pages where one picture worked with another.”

Schapiro first took an interest to photography at 9 while at summer camp. He fell in love with “the magic of photography” in the dark room, where he became fascinated by how pictures came to life after being dipped in various formulas. But it wasn’t until he discovered Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment, as a teenager, that his interest really took hold. He began trying to capture his own decisive moments on the streets of New York City, before going to study the formal aspects of photography under W. Eugene Smith.

In 1961, amid the height of the Civil Rights movement, Schapiro started working as a freelance photographer for publications such as LIFE, Rolling Stone, TIME and Newsweek. Over the next 10 years, which Schapiro calls “the golden age of photojournalism,” he would cover the decade’s most significant events, including Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 march in Selma, and later, King’s abandoned motel room after this assassination, as well as the “Summer of Love” in Haight-Asbury and Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. “It was an incredible time to be a photojournalist because there was more of an emotional flow—an ability to do more emotional pictures that captured the spirit of a person,” says Schapiro of the period. “I was able to spend a lot of time with people—Bobby Kennedy went to South America for four weeks and I got to go with him. When I got really sick there, Ethel Kennedy brought me Bobby’s pajamas to wear. Bobby was someone who I became friends with, but everyone who worked with him loved him.”

Despite his success as a photographer, Schapiro maintains that he hasn’t taken his most important picture yet—and doesn’t have any idea what it might be. In the meantime, there’s one subject who continues to elude him: “President Barack Obama. I would love to photograph him.”

Slideshow here.

JUST PUBLISHED BY TASCHEN: THE GODFATHER FAMILY ALBUM; Photos by Steve Schapiro

An offer you can't refuse.

Steve Schapiro: Homage, The Godfather

"It's dangerous to be an honest man." —Michael Corleone, Godfather III

As special photographer on the sets and locations of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy, Steve Schapiro had the remarkable experience of witnessing legendary actors giving some of their most memorable performances. Schapiro immortalized Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton in photos that have since become iconic images, instantly recognisable and endlessly imitated. Gathered together for the first time in this book are Schapiro's finest photographs from all three Godfather films, lovingly reproduced from the original negatives. With contextual essays and interviews covering the trilogy in its entirety, this book from Taschen contains over 400 color and black & white images.

Schapiro's images take us behind the scenes of this epic and inimitable cinematic saga, revealing the director's working process, capturing the moods and personalities involved, and providing insight into the making of movie history.

Previously restricted to 1,000 Limited Edition copies, this is the unlimited trade edition for cinephiles and 'family' members on a budget! More details here.

About the photographer:

Steve Schapiro is a distinguished journalistic photographer whose pictures have graced the covers of Time, Sports Illustrated, Life, Look, Paris Match, and People, and are found in many museum collections. He has published two books of his work, American Edge and Schapiro's Heroes. In Hollywood he has worked on more than 200 motion pictures; his most famous film posters are for Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, Parenthood, and The Godfather Part III. His photographs are currently featured in a retrospective exhibition at Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, through June 27.

About the editor:


Paul Duncan has edited 50 film books for TASCHEN, including the award-winning The Ingmar Bergman Archives, and authored Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick in the Film Series.