Skip to main content

Paolo Pellegrin Turns in a Great Performance of His Own

I’m not a magazine pack rat. Caroline, our product manager, keeps all of her magazines. Stacks and stacks. Reads every single word. But not me. M...

I’m not a magazine pack rat. Caroline, our product manager, keeps all of her magazines. Stacks and stacks. Reads every single word. But not me. Magazines are heavy, and once I’ve flipped through a few times, I throw them in the recycling bin.

But there is one issue of one magazine that I keep every year, and that is the Great Performers issue of the New York Times Magazine as we approach Oscar time. As you migth recall, I love movies.

The team of Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadi shot the portfolio for a few years, and ragged copies of these issues lie in my room waiting to be viewed over and over again. So in 2007, I was a little bummed that they switched it up by going with a slew of photographers, one of whom was Magnum Photo’s Paolo Pellegrin. He shot this one of Maggie Cheung:

pellegrin-cheung.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

I was first introduced to Paolo’s work by my pal Kristen Ashburn. His work is generally pretty hard core conflict and documentary photography shot in Tri-X. This image is typical Pellegrin in all his action-filled, dodged/burned goodness:

pellegrin.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

I love his photojournalism, but I wasn’t so moved by his portrait of Cheung, so I had some trepidation when I saw that he shot the entire portfolio for the Times. But why hate, Allen?

From the moment I opened the multimedia piece, I was blown away. Let me show you what I mean. Here’s Kate Winslet, and oh, Leo in the foreground. I thought “hey, really nice reportage.”

pellegrin-winslet.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

Then I saw Robert Downey, Jr. and I had to pick up my jaw from the floor. Did we just fall into a Gregory Crewdson one-frame movie? Holy crap. This is an awesome portrait. (and is that a PX90 body?)

pellegrin-downey.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

pellegrin-downey2.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos


This stuff is inspired. Here’s Kat Denning. Michael Cera is under the water (I kid).

pellegrin-denning.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

Many years ago when I moved to New York, I did a movie marathon on Christmas and we finished up with “Scary Movie.” I was sitting next to a black guy, who upon hearing a very funny joke, yelled out “THAT’S MILK!” as in, that is the bomb. That is the mother’s milk. This is Milk.

pellegrin-penn.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

If that last one was milk, this is butter.

pellegrin-penn2.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

And my heart stopped for 2 beats when I saw this one.

pellegrin-cruz.jpg

Photo by Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos

Pellegrin traveled around the world to capture these movie stars in various locations. He also had the help of a post production team in Europe and the US to retouch the images. But I don’t think it dimishes the images — we want our movie stars to look immaculate and mythological. And these pictures do the trick. So apologies to Paolo for being a doubter. You killed it.

Go see the whole series with audio commentary, and buy the newspaper too.

Next Post:
Previous Post:

You May Also Like