Catherine Deneuve by Gilles Bensimon.
Gilles Bensimon talks photography
Sure, you’ve seen Gilles Bensimon on America’s Top Model, but the show doesn’t begin to tell his story. He set new standards for fashion photography when he served as the International Creative Director for Elle magazine.
Some of his portraits of famous beauties; Catherine Deneuve, Audrey Hepburn, Charlize Theron, Cindy Crawford are among the group, will line the wall of several rooms in the Sofitel hotel in Los Angeles. The gallery shows are free to the public and will be up until the end of December.
We caught up with Gilles, and he talked a bit about photography.
“Every time I take a picture of something, I’m very anxious,” the French-born, star photographer said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to capture the right picture.”
But Gilles always gets his picture. He gets rid of the photographer’s version of stage fright and gets to work on creating the right scene. “You normally don’t have much time,” he said. “Sometimes the picture is there. You have to capture it very fast.”
If the subject can’t relax, he can create a scene. Bensimon was given the job to create a memorable photograph with a French actor who only had five minutes to spare. There was a heavy rainstorm, Bensimon told him. “Think you are James Dean, under the rain in Times Square….we do the picture and it was fantastic,” he said.
Like most creative pursuits, there is no rules for photography, he said. “There is no recipe for love, there is no recipe to be rich like Mr. Buffet. …you have to find your own way,” he said. “It sounds very French-- I always take my best pictures when I don’t have my camera with me. It’s the way you look at things.”
