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There’s a big interview with Timothy, written by Charlie Fish, in the Winter 2010 issue of Resource Magazine. Some highlights:
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While a student at RISD, he took countless model portraits, a process that taught him to shoot quickly and deal with personalities. “It was kind of low end,” Timothy recalls. “I would go in and photograph all [this agency's] young girls on seamless paper. I would do three changes of outfits and would do like fifty girls a day. It was insanity. It was a factory…. What I do now stems from that period when I was working 100 miles an hour and had this ability to make people comfortable and talk them through and talk myself thrpough it.”
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He once took a five-day motorcycle trip with Brad Pitt and shot along the way, and got Sony to fund it. “They were hesitant, but it worked,” says Timothy. “Brad and I got on motorcycles and rode through the Mojave Desert. My assistants and stylists followed in a Winnebago. We’d ride, find something cool, pull over, they’d catch up to us, change him into some clothes, and we’d set up, shoot pictures, and take off again.”
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Brad Pitt, photographed by Timothy White.
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Portrait photography, says Timothy, is as much about the photographer as it is about the subject. “I don’t talk about their next movie; I talk about me and things we might have in common,” he explains. “It’s my way of breaking the ice and distracting them. It’s not just about them, or their life, or what they’re projecting; nor is it about their public image, or what they’re selling. It’s about the interaction with somebody.”
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There’s lots more to the interview. Click here—Timothy White_Resource Magazine—to download the PDF.
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