Stephen Vaughan's film stills are as unforgettable as the movies for which he shot them. Who does not remember the image from Rain Man of Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman walking side by side along a tree-lined road? And when you think of Blade Runner, you undoubtedly picture the sultry portrait of Rachel smoking a cigarette, enveloped in swirls of smoke. And what about the Hollywood scandal when Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith?
The tabloids eagerly used Stephen Vaughan's photos of the couple standing in white shirts and rubber boots atop a pile of burning debris. Vaughan took the final photos of actor Heath Ledger on the set of Batman. Disguised as the Joker, with a sardonic smile and piercing gaze, Ledger demonstrates just how powerful a photograph can be.
Capturing moving images in a photograph may be a learned craft, but in Vaughan's hands it developed into an art form. When you view Vaughan's portfolio presents a survey spanning more than thirty years of high-profile feature films and their actors.
We spoke with Vaughan about his work and the exhibition that was scheduled to open at Galerie V!P's on January 25, 2012.
How did you get into photography?
I started out as a child actor. When I was seventeen, my mother died, and I suddenly had to fend for myself and take all kinds of odd jobs to make a living. I played poker for money, cleaned swimming pools, and did almost anything to put food on the table. Eventually, I found a job as an assistant at a photo-printing studio.
I was twenty-five at the time. I worked in a wine cellar that had been converted into a studio, and the first time I saw a photograph develop, it made a huge impression on me. It was as if I were seeing a solar eclipse for the first time—I was genuinely amazed! When people I knew discovered that I could print photos, they eagerly took advantage of it.
One of my clients was a business associate of my employer in the wine trade. He had to travel to Europe to buy wine and asked me to print the photos he took there. He paid me with a camera. I had never really considered becoming a photographer, but I had access to a darkroom, I had a camera, and I could develop film whenever I wanted. That accelerated my learning process.
I find that working under difficult conditions often produces the most interesting images
I got a kick out of choosing the best photographic moment. I asked myself all kinds of questions, such as why a certain shadow fell where it did or where the light came from. Meanwhile, assignments kept coming in. Because I was still acting, I also received assignments through that world. It all happened quite naturally.
When I was little, my parents told me to do what I wanted, and I always wondered what I actually wanted. How would I find my passion? Then photography entered my life, and I had found it.
Your photographic style is very different from that of other film-still photographers. Your photos seem more artistic and sensitive
I look for beauty and energy. I am not looking for a literal depiction of what is happening. I look for circumstances and situations in which beauty becomes visible, and those moments are evocative. I want to capture interesting moments. A film photograph succeeds only when it makes you curious.
Which director did you most enjoy working with?
I enjoy working with visual directors. Bob Fosse is my all-time favorite. He was brilliant in so many ways. Among the directors I worked with more recently, I would mention Timur Bekmambetov and Andrew Niccol. They are deeply involved in a film's visual style, as shown by their choice of cinematographers Caleb Deschanel and Roger Deakins.
I made only one film with Ridley Scott, and that was Blade Runner. It was no picnic: he did not want to work with Americans because of the unions, and he was unhappy that he was not allowed to operate the camera. He resented us, which is a real shame because I would love to work with him again. He is a man of tremendous vision.
I find that working under difficult conditions often produces the most interesting images. Low light, darkness, and grimy backgrounds with saturated tones. The setting is always more interesting under challenging conditions than when you see two actors sitting at a well-lit kitchen table.
What is your greatest challenge when photographing?
Every feature film presents its own challenges, and that is exactly what I enjoy about photographing movie shoots. The greatest challenge is probably being creative. I do not want just any shot; the trick is to make a truly great one. You have to focus on the right moment to capture the photograph.
I made the Johnny Depp photo from Pirates of the Carribean 3 between takes. We were standing in the rain, completely soaked. Filming took place in an aircraft hangar in Palmdale, on a ship with a jet fan and two Ritter fans. The artificial rain and wind blew us sideways as the ship rocked from left to right. You try to take pictures while having to clean your lens after every click.
Sometimes it is miserable work, and you are completely on your own. You can ask the actors to hold still—some do and some do not—but then the energy is gone, so I always seize my opportunity while the cameras are rolling.
Film-still photography is a genre that is often overlooked. Why do you think that is?
I think most people assume film stills are frames taken from the movie. Another factor is that studios are very careless with the material because they have no interest in promoting their photographers as artists. To them, a photo no longer has value once the film stops making money. There have been times when photos and negatives were not properly archived and were lost, stolen, or even thrown away.
I look for circumstances and situations in which beauty becomes visible, and those moments are evocative
As film photographers, we do not own the rights to our photos. Many of the best images often never see the light of day. When I searched for a number of black-and-white negatives from Blade Runner, the studios had no idea where most of them were. I went to United Artists to look for Rain Man material for a photo exhibition and was told that all the material had been lost.
For historical, cultural, and social reasons alone—it was an Academy Award-winning film—these images should be preserved and made available to the photographer. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library asked us to place contact sheets and negatives in its care. That is a good thing.
Your photos of Heath Ledger on the set of Batman became the ironic images with which we now associate him
Heath Ledger was brilliant, a wonderful person and a great actor. Watching him work was a fantastic experience. His portrayal of the Joker was cutting-edge. His death was a tragic loss. He was incredibly talented. For the image in which he is interrogated while being pulled across the table, I danced around the sound technician and assistant camera operator and shot the photos handheld.
Can you tell us about the exhibition?
I participated in many group exhibitions, and in the '90s I was one of the founders of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers. We held exhibitions at the G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, at the Academy, and in Havana. The previous year, I had two solo exhibitions in France, and this exhibition was my first in the Netherlands. It consisted of fifty images ranging from Blade Runner to Dark Knight. It is exciting to show images that people have never seen before.
If you were to be remembered for one photograph, which would it be?
A photo of my late dog Lulu flying through the air after a squirrel.
If you could create the perfect photograph with the best actors, the best lighting, and the best director, what would we see?
A photograph from a movie starring Heath Ledger, directed by Bob Fosse and written by Paddy Chayefsky, would be cool.
