When I Was A Photographer - Film Noir With Camilla Rutherford

It always helps to have well known friends if you want to make it as a photographer. Of course just having famous buddies is not enough, however it tends to help when it comes to getting your pictures published.

Camilla Rutherford is someone I have known since we were teenagers, she was spotted at a relatively young age and became a successful model. As her modelling career began to draw to a close she looked at acting and before long managed to get a part in the classic British 2001 film 'Gosford Park', starring Kristen Scott Thomas and directed by legendary American director Robert Altman.

I have always loved film, and back in those days wanted to be a filmmaker. The kind of movies I loved tended to be foreign and very dramatic, it is safe to say that I was a big fan of film noir, and my photography often reflected that.

The featured photo here was one that I managed to sell to the now defunct 'Hotdog Magazine', it was my first double page spread and I was proud as punch!

It was by no means a magazine with a huge circulation, its roughly 20,000 readers looked upon it as a kind of modern cult, subversive type publication that often bucked the trend of the time of fawning over the Hollywood blockbusters.

Location

The photo was taken on a bridge in West London's Ladbroke Grove. I have always loved the way the light from the sun shines between the struts of the bridge at a certain time of day, so the idea was to capture that light.

Unfortunately, or perhaps with hindsight, fortunately, it was raining that day and by the time we got up to the bridge after the morning set up, it was clear that there was going to be no sunshine to create the picture I had in my head.

I was a little disappointed at first as I had a really clear image in my head. I really wanted to use the hard shadows across her face, while using the sun behind her to create a nice back-lit glow. Then I wanted to use a bit of silver reflector to bounce some of that light onto her left side, and then fill the whole thing in with some diffused flash.

However once I set up the shot and looked through the viewfinder I was just taken by how beautiful the scene was.

I still used some diffused flash and some silver bounce, just in a slightly different way than intended.

I've always thought Camilla looks very French, and so because I couldn't afford a stylist, I gave her that brief and she styled herself in that way.

The overall result, I humbly believe, was a Truffaut-style shot, who was and is, one of my favourite French film directors.

Budget

I think my overall budget for the shoot was about £400, and for that I had to buy and develop the film and hire the camera.

I used a Mamiya rz67 medium format film camera, which you can pick up today on ebay for around £600, but back then cost several thousand pounds.

Each roll of film had ten exposures, and cost around £5. Then I needed to print a contact sheet (a print with all 10 exposures on it), which cost around £12, then of course I had to create the print which cost around £25. So I think I made a couple of hundred pounds, though that wasn't really what motivated me, it was just having that published picture in a magazine that people had paid good money for.

Present Day

Whilst I am no longer a photographer, Camilla is still very much an actress, she has been in many films and worked with many great actors. Recently she acted alongside Daniel Day-Lewis in what is reported to be his last ever film. This is particularly special as Day-Lewis requested her personally and so she was able to circumvent the usual casting procedures.

Film

There is something beautiful about film, especially medium-format film. I'm not sure I could ever recreate something like this digitally, or even if I'd want to. I still enjoy digital photography but I really miss shooting on film.

I don't miss the crippling fees though!

WHAT DO YOU THINK; YOU LIKE?

Links & Resources
Gosford Park Film

Camilla Rutherford IMDB

Hotdog Magazine

@Cryptogee