Marisa Montefusco

4/7/2017

Advanced Studio

Barbara Proud

                                                 Timothy White

            One of the most talented yet unmentioned celebrity photographers is Timothy White.  White is a New York City based photographer who began his career as a skilled architectural photographer.  However, after traveling the world, he transformed into a talented celebrity photographer after falling in love with its fast-paced environment.  White claims that “most of [his] artwork is done at one hundred miles per hour” (Reich, Susan).  Since his transition into portraiture, White has photographed for movie posters, such as Universal Studios, Disney, Paramount and Warner Brothers to name a few (Reich, Susan).  White has also had his portraits displayed in Vogue, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated and many more.  Despite his immense success, White humbly considers himself to be a “self proclaimed ‘normal guy’ from New Jersey” (Reich, Susan).  Timothy White’s untraditional approach to celebrity photography is what has made him popular with the stars of Hollywood.

            While photographing celebrities, White suggests to never stop interacting with the model.  One of the main goals as a photographer is to keep the model interested and to make the model look good.  A model that has lost interest in the photo-shoot is more difficult to photograph.  White believes photography is about “developing a very large bag of tricks, being prepared with your abilities, developing a team you’re confident about and responding to the situation at hand” (Reich, Susan).  Throughout most of Whites’ work it is evident that he is not afraid to try new techniques in order to capture the mood he is looking for.  When photographing outdoors, White never pre-lights the shot because his reaction to his environment influences his lighting technique to produce an artificial reality for the models to be in (Reich, Susan).  By doing this, White is able to successfully create a believable environment that compliments the models best features.

            During the 1990’s, White experimented with photographing pin-up girls (Hart, Russell).  This body of work could be seen as a combination of photography and illustration.  One of his better known photographs features model Amber Smith wearing a black bathing suit, complete with black heels and a choker (Hart, Russell).  In order to get the look he wanted, White painted the bathing suit on the model then he did a lot of retouching, or “illustrating” to the photograph (Hart, Russell).  At the time, retouching photographs was new and many considered it to be highly advanced (Hart, Russell). 

Unlike his pin-up body of work from the 1990’s, Whites’ more recent work deals with replicating natural light by giving it a slight boost to hide the models flaws#. In order to recreate natural light, White heavily observes reality was well as references paintings and other photographs (Reich, Susan).  His favorite technique is that he uses a flashlight to fill in specific areas of the scene while doing a time exposure (Reich, Susan).  Natural light is always changing, as is the lighting throughout his celebrity portrait body of work.  In one of Whites’ photographs of Brad Pitt, he is portrayed exactly as the world sees him, a stunningly stylish heartthrob women lust after.  While the two women in the background are eyeing Brad Pitt, Pit does not seem to notice as he stares across to the opposite wall of the hallway.   Upon inspection, a viewer can tell that there were at least three lights used to light the scene, a strong light on the main focus, Brad Pitt, the hallway light, as well as a light in the far background.  Typically Whites’ signature tools that he always has on hand are silver cards.  He enjoys using the silver cards in ambient light to capture the sparkle in his models’ eye (Reich, Susan). White’s other favorite piece of equipment to use is his old, battered umbrella, which is usually used as a main light.  He strongly believes that the more simple the lighting, the better the image will be.  A photograph does not need to have complicated lighting in order to be considered “good.”  While keeping the lighting as simple as possible, White never fails to continuously find new ways to light an environment whether that is with professional or unprofessional gear (Reich, Susan). 

        I consider my work to be drastically different from the work of Timothy White; however, there are definite similarities of how we think as photographers.  For instance, myself as well as White believe that having too many expectations for your work will ultimately lead to disappointment because the photograph will never be exactly as you envisioned it inside your head.  Unlike White, who uses an umbrella, I prefer to use a soft box as my main source of light.  After looking at Timothy Whites celebrity work, I can now see similarities in my own work.  Like White, my portraiture work also attempts to capture the character of the model by using the environment and simple lighting to set the mood.  I believe one of the differences between our photographs is that I prefer to shoot strictly in a studio setting whereas White ends every photo-shoot with outdoor shots.  On the other hand, I have also made many transformations throughout my photography career, transitioning from architecture to portraiture.  Timothy Whites’ work shows me that there is so much that can be done with simple or improvised lighting.  The realization of this makes me want to continue working with models to enhance my portraiture techniques.

                        Throughout his career Whites’ style of photography has transformed from architectural, to pin-up then to portraits.  It may seem as though his talent has gone unnoticed to the public but in a world of celebrities, he is well known and even considered to be the best celebrity photographer to date.  His approach to portraiture is slightly different than what had been done in the past.  In his early stages, White used a lot of retouching to the point where they models almost looked illustrated.  Recently, however, White prefers to use soft, ambient light and reacts to the model and the environment instead of the model having to react to the lighting.  By constantly engaging in his model, he makes them feel comfortable which boosts the moral of the atmosphere.  Whites career as a celebrity photographer took off after his portraits appeared in Time Magazine and Vogue. Not long after that, directors were seeking him out to photograph movie posters and celebrities were begging for him to take their portrait. There is a tremendous increase in energy and speed when transitioning from architecture to portraiture but White seems to have assimilated quickly to the intense atmosphere. 

                                                  Works Cited

Hart, Russel. “Viva Varga!” American Photo, vol 6, no. 5, Sep/Oct95, p.35.

Reich Susan. “The Geurrilla Lighting of Timothy White.” Photo District News, vol. 22, no. 3, Mar. 2002, p. 96.

White, Timothy. “Timothy White.” Timothy White. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2017 http://timothywhite.com/gallery

MAPH 304 Advanced Studio Photography