Bruce Weber: Photographer
Produced by R. Couri Hay
With mentors like Richard Avedon, Liz Taylor, and Diane Arbus, it’s no surprise that the photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber has gone on to discover and befriend some of the biggest names in the worlds of fashion, art, and film. The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker’s newest documentary, Treasure of His Youth, about the Italian photographer Paolo Di Paolo, is currently making waves at film festivals around the world. In this second installment of our series with Weber, the iconic photographer reminisces about his relationships with some of the most intriguing people of the 20th and 21st centuries—many bold-faced names, but just as many relative unknowns. This story contains highlights from some of Bruce’s most iconic summer shoots, with many images originally taken for companies like Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch.
Lessons From Diane Arbus
Early on, Bruce developed an affinity for casting previously unknown talent: the lifeguard he ran into on the public beach, the young woman working at the ice-cream stand, the ferry attendant with the perfect nose. A dentist or plumber or dogwalker was just as likely to land on the pages of a magazine or a billboard as a professional model. “David Geffen once asked me, ‘How do you even meet any of these people?’ I said, simply, ‘Well, I don’t know. I just have a big world.’ Being open to everyone and curious about them has helped me become a better photographer. One day I’m doing a portrait of somebody, the next day photographing a dog that I heard about. The day after it’s something else altogether. My attention and focus are always changing—it’s the way I’ve always preferred to be.” In this way, Bruce played a leading role in launching the careers of Brooke Shields, Talisa Soto, Bruce Hulse, Jeff Aquilon, and innumerable others from the late 1970s onward.
Diane Arbus shared some important words of wisdom with Bruce when they first met. “She told me, ‘Don’t let your mistakes or your successes get in the way of doing your work.’ ” Bruce talks
about how Arbus was both tough and fragile in equal measure, and he shared how he has based his career, and, in many ways, his life on her words of wisdom.
Richard Avedon: A Mentor
Bruce shared how Richard Avedon—the photographer known for stark black-and-white portraits—became a mentor to him. It was Avedon who encouraged Bruce to study photography after seeing some pictures he’d taken on a summer vacation in Maine.
Years later, the tables were turned, and Bruce was asked to photograph Avedon for Vogue in New York City. He describes their sitting together like a scene from a movie. First, they encountered the gallerist Leo Castelli on the street. Avedon dropped down on his knees and started bowing to him. There was a Veterans Day Parade passing down 5th Avenue, and Avedon ran out of the crowd like a kid to take pictures, with Bruce trailing behind. When they got to Central Park, groups of tourists from Japan asked Avedon to take their photos, not realizing who was behind the camera. Though the deadline for the shoot had passed, Bruce told Anna Wintour he needed more time to go back and do more photos because he hadn’t yet captured the Avedon experience fully.
It was during this time Bruce and his mentor developed an even closer friendship, despite Avedon being plagued by a host of troubles, including his wife’s declining health. Bruce remembers how Avedon always remained empathetic. “I loved his quirks. He would call me at all hours to talk about some problem or another. I welcomed it, of course, because he was somebody I grew up with, and he was a hero of mine.”
Helmut Newton & Edward Weston
Unlike Helmut Newton, the famed surrealist who believed photographers took only one picture and then kept repeating it, Bruce has always been drawn to naturalism. “I think because the pictures my dad took were naturalistic, I was drawn to and admired those kinds of photographs. I’ve always looked at the work of Edward Weston with admiration. I don’t want to necessarily take pictures like him, but I love the naturalness of his process.” Perhaps this is why Bruce has always been drawn to photographing the human figure in its most natural state.
Sex appeal may be one of the most recognizable aspects of his work, but Bruce insists that he does not go into a shoot thinking of how to make something sexy. In fact, he finds the mere suggestion cringeworthy. Instead, he is motivated by a feeling.
“I’ve always been a bit awkward. When photographing a nude, I try to find something extraordinary about the person. It could be the way the light hits their hands or their back, the turn of their thigh or shoulder—something that simply provokes a feeling. I consider them as a person—where they went to school, what they want to do with their life. All these things add up to my desire to know more about the person, and that feeling, in turn, goes into the photograph.”
The GQ Years
Early in his career, Bruce was tapped by Harry Coulianos and Donald Sterzin to photograph for GQ. Sterzin was GQ’s art director at the time and became Bruce’s good friend—their work together helped redefine the vision of male sexuality in mainstream American culture. This partnership could never have been forged were it not for Bruce’s own exacting standards. After one of his first shoots for GQ, Bruce stunned everyone by asking that his name be taken off the story, as he wasn’t pleased with the lighting and the model selection. “I was just starting out. They looked at me like I was crazy, but I was really tough about it, and they honored my wishes. I think that made an impression.”
His career at GQ defined a new men’s aesthetic—one that was not only sexy but chic. “You have to understand, in those early days most men weren’t even photographed, let alone in magazines or in a bathing suit, for that matter. I was doing a GQ sports issue in California, and the first place we went was Pepperdine University, where I knew the water polo coach. I photographed his son, who was captain of the team, in a gold suit, as well as Jeff Aquilon, another player on the team. To me, these photographs weren’t so much about their sexuality—I just thought they were both really special. People assume that if you appreciate guys that way, you have to be gay. I never saw it that way. I always felt that if I liked a person, I wasn’t going to be shy about showing it.”
Another example of Bruce finding a special subject was his discovery of Peter Johnson, a young athlete attending wrestling camp at the University of Iowa. Bruce wound up photographing him for countless designers and magazines over a four-year period. He even released a book on Johnson and made a movie of their time together, called Chop Suey. Though Bruce explains he wasn’t sexually attracted to him, he really loved Peter as a friend and what he stood for.
According to Bruce, the joy of being a photographer is having a romantic sensibility—be it in words, music, or the physicality of things—that allows him to go anywhere in his imagination. Bruce expresses gratitude for being able to experiment while growing up, to develop an awareness of his emotional life, and to put that at the center of his process.
Paul Newman
One standout character in Bruce’s photographic life was Paul Newman, who he says always reminded him of his father. Bruce first met Paul at a racetrack in Florida, on assignment to shoot a
cover for Esquire. Hungover, ill-tempered, and wearing dark sunglasses, Newman did not match Bruce’s mental image in looks or attitude, although he was still determined to capture that perfect picture, however challenging.
For the beginning of the shoot, Paul’s face was constantly buried in a newspaper. Bruce asked him how they were ever going to get the photo if he wouldn’t show his face. Paul’s response took him by surprise. “He took his glasses off and said, ‘I’m so tired of people talking about my blue eyes.’ I said, ‘Well, I never mentioned your blue eyes.’ We started riffing on each other a little bit, and it was kind of antagonistic. I wanted to like him so much. Then we started walking over to the racetrack together, and if we hadn’t walked so fast, me and my assistant, we would have lost him.”
The chess game continued for a bit. Bruce was instructed not to take photos of him in his car—yet Newman still posed with strangers asking for pictures. “I decided that I couldn’t listen to him anymore. I wasn’t going to be a nice guy. Photographers are always being forced to have good manners. But I stayed with him. I wanted people to appreciate the man I knew was there.”
Bruce finally found his moment. Watching Newman play with a Band-Aid that was wrapped around one of his fingers while looking out into the distance, Bruce lay down on the ground and knew he had it. “I got a really nice picture of him that ran on the cover, but I had to work hard for that one.”
According to Bruce, experiences like these, and shooting some of the biggest campaigns in the fashion world, aren’t his most prized accomplishment. Rather, it was having the opportunity and means to care for his parents when they were sick. He and his wife, Nan, moved down to Palm Beach to stay with them during that time, and it was a time he cherishes to this day. Regardless of whatever awards or accolades he has received, Bruce enjoys just being Bruce. “People ask me now, ‘What is it like to do this?’ And I say, ‘Every day is a new day. And every day you’ve got to prove yourself as a photographer.’ ”
Website: bruceweber.com
