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Style Event
Douglas Kirkland By Holly V. Kapherr
– Photojournalist Kirkland’s list of celebrity clients is an inventory of Hollywood A-listers for the past 50 years. Most notably, he’s photographed timeless stars Frank Sinatra, Cher and Marilyn Monroe. “Everyone wants to know about Marilyn,” he says, and rightfully so. Kirkland’s provocative pictures of an ultra-glam Monroe twisted in white satin bed sheets became the paragon of the golden age of photojournalism. Later, Angelina Jolie would ask to be photographed the same way, nude in white satin bed sheets, evoking her own version of the icon’s classic photo shoot with Kirkland. Jolie’s favorite shot from that shoot now hangs in her Hollywood home. Inspired by LIFE magazine photographer Gordon Parks, and other photojournalists like Arnold Newman, Irving Penn and Pete Turner, Kirkland reiterates that connection is the most important part of making a photo sing. “These men all had something in common—they could capture a moment in time and you’d remember it forever,” he says. “It’s not about copying someone’s style, it’s understanding what you love about their work and then figuring out how to do it in your own.”
Douglas Kirkland will be doing a lecture and book signing
His recent work with Vanity Fair Italy gave him carte blanche to recreate classic scenes in Italian cinema using actors from the present. “This has been my favorite project so far. It’s been the most exciting to create and discover everything beautiful that Italian people, Italian film and the Italian landscape has to offer,” he says. To create the project, Kirkland worked around Italy in Rome, Torino, Milan and in Cinecittà: Italy’s answer to Hollywood Studio City. On the horizon, Kirkland is compiling a book called Freeze Frame, archiving 50 years of his work in celebrity photography and photojournalism. His work with Australian-born director Baz Luhrmann afforded him some time to work on the set of major motion pictures like Moulin Rouge!, Australia and the opera, La Boheme, which Luhrmann directed.
Sat. 5 / 22, at 3 PM UCF CEM
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Kirkland’s graceful style and thoughtful shots has made him a favorite among the star elite. “I like people, and I want to make them look their best,” Kirkland says. “There is something wonderful in everyone, I connect with them for that brief moment in time. I have no tricks. I just want to learn about them and capture something about them that no one has seen before.”