Wordblog

Ian Jack has a fascinating piece on the altered reality of documentary film makers in the Guardian today. The BBC trailer which used a picture of the Queen in an apparent strop after celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz had asked her to remove her tiara, is his peg. In reality the picture was of the Queen entering the room for the photographic session.

Jack tells a story which suggests that altered reality applies just as much to still photography. He went to Los Angeles to interview Michael Caine but was firmly turned away at the star’s home.

Later he got the explanation that Leibovitz, who was to take the photographs, had insisted Caine dress in clothes she had brought with her. Caine told Jack: "I wasn’t having any of that crap. I wear my own clothes."

The large crew of assistants and the equipment used by Leibovitz to help create her images is well documented and requires the full co-operation of her subjects. Or, as Wikipedia puts it, is "marked by a close collaboration between the photographer and the subject".

How far this collaboration goes is demonstrated by an article in Salon in 2000 by author Brett Leveridge on the day Leibovitz photographed him for a book cover. He wrote:

"I like your beard in person," she says of my tiny goatee, "but I’m not sure it’s working in all these shots. Why don’t you shave it and we’ll shoot some more?"

Fine by me, of course. I’m not going to decline the opportunity to have Leibovitz shoot another round of pictures of my mug. She sends someone out for a razor and shaving cream and, upon their return, I head for the bathroom and off comes the goatee. We do another 30 or 45 minutes of shooting before I make my way back out into the chill Manhattan afternoon, walking approximately 6 inches off the ground.

It makes asking the Queen to take off her tiara sound trivial.