Glasses!

The Dutch photographer Philip Mechanicus once called portraits "photos of a nose with surroundings". Portrait photographers love to focus on glasses as surroundings; many subjects use them as accessories, but some as masks. Here are some of my favourite examples.

Bud Cort by Greg Gorman. This was for an ad for l.a. Eyeworks. The tagline: “A face is like a work of art. It deserves a great frame.”

Javis Cocker by Mattia Zoppellaro for Mojo, Dublin, 2006

Ennio Morricone by Guido Harari, 1998. In this masterpiece of metonymy, Morricone's glasses stand in for the man himself.

More metonymy in this portrait of Martin Scorsese by Philip Montgomery, 2020

Oliver Sacks by Nigel Parry-Katz

Bill Nighy by Nadav Kander, London, 2008

Primo Levi by Jillian Edelstein 

Ahmad Jamal by Frank Stewart, 2013. Music photographers love the reflection of piano keys in glasses.

And sometimes it's a chance to insert a self-portrait. Sam Lévin shows up in Brigitte Bardot's sunglasses, 1975

Reflected butterflies in this great portrait of Vladimir Nabokov by Philippe Halsman, 1968

Two portraits by William Helburn for Lady Van Heusen, 1964. First up: Jean Shrimpton Buttoned Up

Next: Jean Shrimpton Unbuttoned 

To end, a sad still-life. Henry Leutwyler's shot of John Lennon's glasses

Portraits by Joe Gaffney

Raquel Welch in Paris; a portrait by Joe Gaffney. Many of his photographs are unfortunately undated, but Gaffney worked in Paris between 1975 and 1985, when he moved to New York. 

Dennis Hopper by Joe Gaffney. Gaffney works as effectively in black & white as he does in colour.

A beautifully-lit photograph of Lenny Kaye by Joe Gaffney

An unexpected pairing: Pete Townshend and Oliver Reed. Having a beer, which isn't unexpected.

Roxy Music (Andy Mackay, Bryan Ferry and Phil Manzanera) photographed by Joe Gaffney at the Hotel Meurice in Paris, 1973

Gaffney's Roxy Music portrait reminds me of this shot by Hans Namuth, a spectacular portrait of Andy Warhol in front of a Rubens painting, 1982

Look in the background of this portrait of Man Ray by Joe Gaffney, from 1975. It's Henri Cartier-Bresson's photo of Man Ray & Duchamp playing chess.

Finally, two Joe Gaffney portraits of the late, great Tim Curry. The first, in black & white, is from 1974.

Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1973. RIP to a wonderful actor.

Album Cover Portraits by Lotte Meitner-Graf

I was so impressed when I discovered the portraits of Lotte Meitner-Graf, who made wonderful photographs of artistic and scientific worthies of the 1930s to the 1960s, in her London studio. Many of her best portraits can be seen at the website of the National Portrait Gallery in London, but there's another source for fabulous shots: LP covers.

This is one of the great album cover photos: David Oistrakh and Otto Klemperer, on a 1961 Columbia disc of the Brahms Violin Concerto. It's not clear if this is a single photo or a collage, but in either case it's superbly atmospheric, and hints at the depth of feeling these two great musicians bring to this music. By the way, it was when my brother Lane found this album at a record store that I first learned about Lotte Meitner-Graf.

This intense Lotte Meitner-Graf portrait of Herbert Karajan is for a Tchaikovsky disc from 1960, also from Columbia. It's a photograph that makes me think of Isaiah Berlin's famous quote: "He was a genius—with a whiff of sulphur about him."

A very fine portrait of the young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, for a Schubert Lieder album from 1961.

Carlo Maria Giulini looks as refined as his Dvorak sounds, in this 1962 album cover portrait by Lotte Meitner-Graf.

There's been a lot of discussion of the portraits of Leonard Bernstein with the recent release of Bradley Cooper's film Maestro. This is a classic shot of Lenny's profile by Lotte Meitner-Graf, for a 1966 Mahler release from Vienna.

Here's a rare Lotte Meitner-Graf portrait taken outside the studio, and it's a big winner. Meitner-Graf has captured the spontaneity that's an important part of Rosalyn Turek's recordings of Bach for the piano. This compilation includes music recorded in 1960, so I'll assume that's about when this photo was taken.

Lotte Meitner-Graf's portrait of harpsichordist George Malcolm for a 1969 Couperin album.

I find Lotte Meitner-Graf's double portraits are often more interesting than her solo shots. This 1969 photograph of soprano Margaret Price and pianist James Lockhart is beautifully lit, and beautifully composed.

Here's the only album with a Lotte Meitner-Graf portrait cover from my own LP collection: the father and son team of David and Igor Oistrakh. Their 1961 recording of the Bach Concerto for Two Violins is legendary.

Another fabulous double portrait by Lotte Meitner-Graf: Julian Bream with his wonderful lute, and tenor Peter Pears, from 1960.

Portraits by Lotte Meitner-Graf

Lotte Meitner-Graf photographed many of the world's great artists, scientists and writers, from the 1930s until her death twenty years later. She had her own studio at 23 Old Bond Street in London from 1953. Here are some of my favourite portraits.

Leontyne Price by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1958

Helene Weigel by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 1930s

Otto Klemperer by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 1950s

Yehudi Menuhin by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1963

Jean Seberg by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1957

Albert Schweitzer by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 1959

Danny Kaye by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1955

The writer Elizabeth Taylor by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1957

Niels Bohr by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1956

Benjamin Britten by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1960

Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dorothy Hodgkin by Lotte Meitner-Graf, 20 July 1960

Chinua Achebe by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1970

Julian Bream and Peter Pears by Lotte Meitner-Graf, c. 1960

And finally, a self-portrait of Lotte Meitner-Graf from the early 1950s.

Portraits by Peter Basch

Often referred to as a "glamour" photographer, Peter Basch was in fact a very fine portrait photographer, who happened to shoot mainly very attractive subjects. 

Sharon Tate by Peter Basch, 1966

Natalie Wood by Peter Basch,  1960s

Catherine Deneuve by Peter Basch, 1960

Jean Simmons with her dog Bessy. This 1955 portrait by Peter Basch is in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Dirk Bogarde by Peter Basch, Hollywood, 1960

A lovely, intimate shot of François Truffaut and Jeanne Moreau on the set of Jules et Jim, by Peter Basch, 1962

Jean Cocteau by Peter Basch, New York, 1955

Catherine Deneuve by Peter Basch, 1962. This was taken on the set of Alain Cavalier's La Chamade.

Janet Leigh by Peter Basch, c. 1960




Anita Ekberg by Peter Basch, 1955

And here's Peter Basch himself, photographing Monica Vitti, 1960.