Thread by @dean_frey

I'm teaching myself more about still photographers on movie sets. "Le photographe de plateau" is the name in French. I'll begin with a random thread, but hope to dig deeper in the future. 📷🎥
Jack Lemmon in Glengary Glen Ross; a great shot by Andrew Schwarz, 1992

"Set photographers were technicians with ill-defined jobs. They were mostly asked to take a photo from the spot where the movie camera was standing at the end of a scene, and then to make themselves scarce."
Raymond Cauchetier helped break the mold with his Breathless photos

Cauchetier worked on the movie set as if he were a photojournalist. That was a perfect fit for the directors of the New Wave, & resulted in some great photographs.
This shot from Breathless was taken in a relaxed time between shots.

Raymond Cauchetier is the best-known of the New Wave still photographers, but Georges Pierre, with 107 credits on IMDb from 1961 to 1992, did great work as well. This is from Godard's Pierrot le Fou, 1965.

Georges Pierre worked closely with Alain Resnais, beginning in 1961 with Last Year at Marienbad. This shot of director & star is outstanding...

... but since there are seldom credits for these stills, & each frame of Resnais's film is so beautifully composed, it's hard to know if some of these shots are by Georges Pierre or by Resnais & his cinematographer Sacha Vierny

I'm looking forward to delving into the work of Cauchetier & Pierre, the two great still photographers of the New Wave. But one shouldn't believe great set photos began with Breathless. Here's a Sam Lévin shot from Jean Renoir's La Bête humaine, 1938

Here's a lovely shot by Roger Parry, taken on the set of Jean Boyer's 1936 film Un mauvais garçon

Roger Parry worked in Hollywood after the war; here's a great shot on the set of Confidential Agent, 1945, with cinematographer James Wong Howe & stars Charles Boyer & Peter Lorre.

As always, I'll be on the lookout for women set photographers. Here's a perfect shot by Lacey Terrell, of Matthew McConaughey on the set of True Detective, Season 1, 2014

Anjelica Huston on the set of The Grifters, 1991, taken by Suzanne Hanover

An amazing shot by Melinda Sue Gordon, from the set of Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, 2017

Another very moving shot by Melinda Sue Gordon: Robert Altman on the set of his final film, Prairie Home Companion, 2006

A high point of movie set still photography came when Magnum sent 9 of its photographers to The Misfits set in 1960:
Eve Arnold (her shot here), Cornell Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Ernst Haas, Erich Hartmann, Inge Morath, Dennis Stock

Inge Morath
The first day of shooting for The Misfits in Reno, July 18, 1960. Director John Huston & screenwriter Arthur Miller.

Elliott Erwitt carefully composed this portrait of the cast of The Misfits (with producer Frank Taylor, screenwriter Arthur Miller & director John Huston), & then everyone had some fun.

Lots of great pictures & stories from Weegee's time as a still photographer on the set of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, 1963. Though he already had a photographer in place (Bob Penn is credited), Kubrick wanted his old friend on set, as a "talisman".
straight.com/movies/394076/…

Weegee was hired (but not credited) as a "special effects advisor". Kubrick probably got some visual inspiration from some of the shots he took. Here is Peter Sellers as Group Captain Mandrake, in Weegee's patented distorted view.

Weegee brought his tabloid sensibility to shots like this from the scene with George C. Scott as General "Buck" Turgidson & Tracy Reed as Miss Scott, & probably contributed to the final look in the film.

I just realized that this amazing shot of Weegee taking a flash photo of Tracy Reed probably helped Scott & Reed develop their performances & contributed to Kubrick's (very fine, very funny) scene.

The Dr. Strangelove set was full of superb artists & technicians, plus two scary geniuses: Peter Sellers & Stanley Kubrick. Both knew a great deal about photography, & Weegee treated the two as colleagues & icons.

Kubrick spent the late 40s & 50s as a photographer for Look magazine, which is when he met Weegee. I was curious to see if he had done any still movie set work himself. Here's something from Weegee's wheelhouse: a scene from the TV series Paddy Wagon, 1948
@MuseumofCityNY

Back to random still photography from movie sets:
This is one of my favourite shots from the modern studio era of special practical effects. David Strick's clever shot from John Whitesell's Deck the Halls, 2006

Merie Weismiller Wallace's superb shot from Alexander Payne's Nebraska, 2013.

Today's action films go by in a blur. Set photographer slow things down, & the best take advantage of Henri Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment."
Two great shots by Jasin Boland, from Bourne Ultimatum, 2007; & Spectre, 2015

Another spectacular shot by Jasin Boland, from the set of George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015. An epic film is distilled into an epic photograph.

Ralph Nelson has 72 IMDb credits as a still photographer on movie sets. A famous shot of Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct, 1992.

I love this photo by Ralph Nelson from the set of The Good Shepherd, 2006: Robert De Niro directs Matt Damon

Andrew Cooper reveals the transcendent Martin Scorsese on the set of The Departed, 2006. This is how we always knew Marty made his movies.

A good set photographer, Andrew Cooper again, can show us some of the many odd ways in which a movie gets made. Jack Nicholson goes over his lines in The Departed, 2006

One last shot from the set of The Departed, 2006. Scorsese & his great cinematographer, Michael Ballhaus, provide some awesome light for Leonardo DiCaprio. Another fine shot by Andrew Cooper.

Raymond Voinquel learned his craft doing portraits at Studio Harcourt in Paris during the 1940s. As a "photographe de plateau", he created memorable shots from movie sets in France & Hollywood.
Max Ophüls on the set of Lola Montes, 1955

Tony Curtis by Raymond Voinquel, from 1954. Not sure what film this is from; Curtis was really busy in those days!
Compare these last two silhouetted photos with Ralph Nelson's shot from De Niro's The Good Shepherd, 2006, earlier in this thread.

A shot from the set by Mark Rogers turns into this outstanding poster for Hacksaw Ridge.

A clever impromptu portrait of director Jim Jarmusch, on the set of Only Lovers Left Alive, 2013, by set photographer Gordon Timpen.

One of the great gifts of an excellent set photographer is to see a slice of the behind-the-camera life of a production. JoJo Whilden's great shot from the Girls set.

Every once in a while a set photographer takes an outstanding shot that could stand alone as a work of art. This happened more than once with Nicolas Tikhomiroff on the set of Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight. This was taken in Spain in 1964.

Another great Nicolas Tikhomiroff shot of Orson Welles on the set of Chimes at Midnight, 1964

I could spend the rest of Saturday morning just posting Nicolas Tikhomiroff's photographs from Orson Welles's production of Chimes at Midnight. Orson was special on both sides of the camera!

"The film is the displaced realization of a life both too vast & too petty, too wild & too constrained for the great man condemned to live it."
- @tnyfrontrow on Orson & Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight
With Jeanne Moreau in another great Nicolas Tikhomiroff shot, from 1968

One last shot from the Chimes at Midnight set. Oddly, this is a better, more spontaneous, picture (a self-portrait) of Nicolas Tikhomiroff, than of Welles, who is usually the focal point of every frame. Now I'm off to watch it on @criterionchannl!

Set photographer Peter Sorel gives us a glimpse of what it took for Ang Lee to film The Life of Pi, 2013

Magnum photographer Alex Majoli was on the set of Mad Men during its 7th & final season

Film technology has changed a lot; television even more! Alex Majoli was struck by this scene on the set of Mad Men, 2014.

Alex Majoli captures some of the glamour & alienation of the characters on Mad Men, from the final season in 2014

Matthew Weiner consults with Elisabeth Moss in coach, & then watches Mad Men playback in First Class.
📷 Alex Majoli, 2014

Another Magnum photographer on the set of a historic film: David Hurn documents The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night, 1964

An amazing shot by David Hurn on the set of A Hard Day's Night, 1964

David Hurn did a fair bit of movie set work. Here are Vanessa Redgrave & director Ken Russell on the set of The Devils, 1970

A good set photographer finds situations for interesting shots away from movie cameras. Burt Glinn's great shot of Liz Taylor & Montgomery Clift, whose Suddenly Last Summer dressing rooms adjoined. June 1959