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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Jake Chessum: Keeping It Light

Jake Chessum photographs celebrities and global power brokers with unexpected twists to their very public personas

This Article Features Photo Zoom

Mickey Rourke

I did a series on nine people over 90, including jazz producer George Avakian, for New York Magazine. I love that guy. He produced some of my favorite records by Gil Evans and Miles Davis. I used to play the trumpet, so I was thrilled to meet him.

DPP: Where does the underlying humor that seems to permeate many of your portraits come from?

Chessum: I’m not sure if it’s deliberate all the time but, yeah, that’s a part of my personality. But it doesn’t reflect a lack of seriousness about work. My general approach is to keep it light, and I guess that shows in the end result.

DPP: Your assignments often include portrait sessions with politicians who tend to want to be portrayed in a serious, powerful image. How do you evoke what you want out of them?

Mickey Rourke, Ewan McGregor and Viggo Mortensen seduce Chessum’s camera with their unique charms.

Chessum: I don’t think I do very delicately posed pictures where I need them to be very still like they’re stuck in a corner. That approach tends to yield more serious-looking poses. I studied graphic design in college and have always been very conscious of composition, not just in terms of design, but in terms of how graphic design impacts photographs and how photographs work commercially. I’m very conscious of the end use. I grew up looking at painting as much as design and photography. This background has helped me design the pictures, but not in a way where it becomes, “If you move your finger a quarter of an inch to the left, it’s going to be the perfect angle.”

It’s vital to maintain someone’s interest in being photographed. I’m pragmatic and realistic about it. A lot of people who you shoot, they’re not that interested in being photographed. You often have very little time because they’re important politicians or CEOs or actors on a tight schedule. I’m very conscious of that.

DPP: Typically, how much time do you get for a session?

It’s disco in a box with the gentlemen of Coldplay.

Chessum: There’s no typical. Typical is atypical. With some politicians, two or three minutes; other people, several hours. The funny thing is, I like to put a cap on it even if it’s a celebrity portrait. After several hours, unless there’s some big concept or there are many different setups, you’ve got it.
If someone wants to be crazy, I’ll dive in with them and appreciate them for being a lunatic. If someone wants to have loud music and scream and shout or put on a sad song, great. I don’t treat people in a deferential way or a disrespectful way. I present myself as who I am. I’ll talk about my wife and kids, and if they join in, we can get a rapport. Or maybe we’ll talk about vacation plans. But, generally, the bigger the star, the smaller the talk. I photographed Robert De Niro. He doesn’t want to hear about how great he was in Goodfellas; he knows.

There are some people who are easy to talk with and some people that put up a bit of a wall. Chris Rock is a very nice guy, he’s friendly, but he doesn’t want to talk about anything that has to do with himself. So you have to find a subject that he wants to talk about, like a movie or somebody he thinks is funny or somebody he thinks is a piece of crap. It’s funny. You’re thrown in with these people who you’ve never met before and you have to figure out very quickly what’s going to work.

DPP: For shoots with politicians and CEOs, you probably have to go to them rather than them coming to a studio. What kind of equipment are you bringing with you on location?