Who Shot It Better? Michelle Williams: Mark Segal or Art Streiber

Who Shot It Better? Michelle Williams: Mark Segal or Art Streiber

Actress Michelle Williams has come a long way from her TV days on Dawson’s Creek to her most recent Oscar nomination – her fourth – for Best Supporting Actress in “Manchester by the Sea.” Let’s not forget her role as “Young Sil” in one of my favorite sci-fi flicks, “Species,” either.

Ahead of the awards, The Sunday Times Magazine profiled Williams and used images taken by portrait photographer Art Streiber for the cover and inset images (originally taken for Variety). Let’s take a look!

When I look at Streiber’s work, the word “clean” comes to mind. Compared to some of his other work, this image is a bit more desaturated and the light is broad and diffuse, but it’s still clean with good edge sharpness. Compared to the Variety cover from the same shoot, Williams expression is much more subdued to match the “Love and Loss” title (you might recall that Williams ex-husband Heath Ledger killed himself in 2008). Nice pose, and notice that the color of the typography matches her lipstick. It’s in the details, folks.

Back in 2011, Williams was featured on the cover of Hobo Magazine following her Best Actress nomination in Blue Valentine. Hobo used fashion photographer Mark Segal, who makes a living shooting beautiful people for clients like Vogue, Lui, and Bulgari. Lucky dude.

The first thing I noticed is that it’s blurry – looks like motion blur. Is it me? Maybe a closer look.

Yep, blurry. But it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s stylistic and it somehow matches the mood of the image. The lighting is very directional with a pretty big contrast ratio, but still soft. Love the finger near the mouth.

Segal apparently made Williams do a lot of that for the shoot.

Hey, this image is sharper! Are we thinking window light with a slow shutter? This image is more fun, but I like the gaze of the cover image.

Each photographer captured Williams with a mood that seems apropos of her age. The Streiber image has an air of distinction while the Segal image has more of a youthfulness. But since we’re going through this silly exercise, I’m picking Segal. His image has a little more edge to it, a little more danger – and I like that.

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This article was written by

Allen Murabayashi is the co-founder of PhotoShelter.

There are 2 comments for this article
  1. Michael at 4:59 pm

    I agree with Allen.
    Streiber’s work is very nice for cover and you see very nice women looking in camera.
    But Sigal’s photo presenting more personality, something else above a beauty.
    First one is good for quick look and second really invite attention.
    Thanks for your interesting comparison!

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