Honest imagery?
The big dramatic instant in 2000 for me was being in the Governor's mansion in Austin, Texas election night. I watched Governor Bush and the others go from the euphoria of thinking they had won, to seeing it pull into a dead heat. The picture that really summed it up was of them all sitting on the couch, former President George Bush in the background on the phone, presidential candidate George's brother Jeb, the other governor in the family, whose state of Florida threw it into a tie, watching the television in disbelief. You can almost see his political life pass before his eyes in that picture. Others in the photograph were Governor and Mrs. Bush, vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney, his wife Lynne, and Don Evans, the campaign chairman. All the big
players in the campaign.
Any rules?
No, not really. If you take a really unflattering picture of somebody, it better be for a good reason. I've always had a sense of fairness in what I do. If, as it happened, you are Mike Dukakis running for president and you put on a helmet and sit in a tank and it becomes a devastating image of you, that's your fault, not my fault. If you're falling down the stairs coming into Austria as President Ford did, that's his fault. Although it was frightfully embarrassing to him, he never blamed the photographers for taking the photos. It did, unfortunately, contribute to an image of him as a bumbling guy, when in fact he was one of the most athletic presidents we've ever had - a former football player, a strong swimmer, a good skier, not a klutz.
Film or digital?
I'm using more digital than not, and the image quality is sensational. I use Canon 35mm cameras generally. The 1Ds' quality blows my mind, it has revolutionized the business. The moment has arrived when digital is as good as film. I haven't given up film entirely, but as a practical matter, it's hard to switch back and forth. I've been taking some pictures with an old Hasselblad camera lately, and I recently shot a whole book using only a Mamiya 7ii with a 43mm lens. There's a satisfaction to shooting film that I don't think you're ever going to get out of digital. Maybe it's just the visceral satisfaction of putting a loupe to a slide, or cruising through a stack of black and white contact sheets. There are big pluses with digital but I fear for the loss of that vital link. I transmit the pictures in to Newsweek or Getty Images from anywhere in the world instantly. I also edit the photos myself. If I shot 200 pictures on an assignment and sent in the film, they would get all 200 to look at; if I shoot 200 digitally, because of time and labor-intensive restraints, I'll probably send in 20 or so. When I go back to look at my take a week later I invariably think, "Oh darn, I missed three or four good ones." A good picture editor will have picked those right off the bat.
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