Stockland Martel

In its “L.A. Woman” issue, which just came out, Los Angeles magazine explores the many manifestations (womanifestations?) of the female L.A. archetype. “Icons, as a rule, get reduced over time to having a set of predictable characteristics,” the editors explain. “But we knew that the women in Los Angeles are more than the clichés that swirl around them.”

And they prove this assertion with their cover: a striking portrait of Maria Shriver by Art Streiber. Here, Art talks about how the shoot came together and how he approached photographing her. “I really wanted to portray Maria as strong, smart, independent, and iconic,” says Art, who also photographed Shriver interviewing Wallis Annenberg. (Update: More photos after the break.)

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“Los Angeles magazine had asked Maria Shriver to interview Wallis Annenberg as part of their “L.A. Woman” package and commissioned me to photograph Maria for the cover and the two of them for an inside opener. While both of these women are incredibly important to the culture of the city, they are rarely photographed.

I worked very closely on this shoot with Los Angeles Creative Director Steven Banks, and Editor at Large Amy Wallace. Steven provided aesthetic guidance for the shoot, and Amy was invaluable with the arrangements that brought these two iconic and private women together to be photographed. 

The portrait was made at the offices of the Annenberg Foundation in Century City, where we had 20 minutes for the cover with Maria Shriver before we photographed her and Wallis Annenberg together.

We had scouted the foundation’s suite the day before the shoot, and with the help of David Scharff, who oversees creative services for the foundation, we found a small, vacant office that accommodated our mini-studio setup, just down the hall from Mrs. Annenberg’s office.

My fabulous first assistant, Elaine Browne, dealt with the logistics of getting our crew and all of our gear into the underground loading docks of the Century Towers, past security, into the service elevators, and through the pristine offices of the foundation.

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Beyond the logistics, I really wanted to portray Maria as strong, smart, independent, and iconic (and, coincidentally, a few of those adjectives made it onto the cover of the magazine). To have the opportunity to photograph any member of the Kennedy family is an honor, and I realized that this portrait needed to stand the test of time.

We shot 120 frames of potential cover files, but there was only one frame in which Maria stood in profile, and I have nothing but praise for Los Angeles magazine for making the decision to publish that frame as the cover.”

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