RORY LEWIS
has shot many of the biggest stars of the stage and screen, yet his latest project is a homage to medieval religious art. Keith Wilson discovers how the works of Renaissance painters influenced Rory’s award-winning style…
LIKE MANY of us, Canon professional photographer Rory Lewis was expecting to spend a few days at The Photography Show at the NEC in Birmingham in March, but COVID-19 changed all that… “I was supposed to do a workshop for 18 people, fully booked, so people were asking, ‘is it going ahead, are we moving the date?’”
Well, currently, the world is staying indoors as we unite to overcome the pandemic, yet Rory seems well prepared when we both take a breath and settle down to have a talk: “I’ve just done a massive shop on Waitrose, got that delivered, and just done a massive shop on Amazon, so I don’t have to go out for anything. I’ve got tons to do, I want to work on my website and I’m publishing a book, so I need to put that together.”
The lockdown meant Rory’s latest exhibition Selah, scheduled for an April opening in London, was also postponed to later this year. ‘Selah’ is a Hebrew word for taking a pause after a major event or incident, so it is strangely ironic with the current times – there’s never been a more appropriate time to understand its full
meaning. Rory’s collection of classically-lit portraits feature a cast of actors who were asked to interpret the meaning of selah, when applied to varying situations. Together, these are the meditative faces of reflection, lit in a Renaissance style, made more powerful by the shadows of recent events…
Why did you choose the word ‘selah’ as the idea?
It comes from the artist, Jusepe de Ribera. He created a body of Counterreformation portraits. Most artists of the early 17th Century were commissioned by the catholic church to create these heroic bible stories. They were paying the wages for those artists because, at the time, the church was under attack by the Protestants, the Lutherans. I was looking through Ribera’s work and you have to pause to look at it and think about it, so I was looking for a word that meant pause religiously. ‘Selah’ is that word.
But how is the word used in a modern context?
Imagine the twin towers when that happened in 2001, after that people had this meditation – this pause over a horrific event. That’s when this word is used, it’s this pause after a difficult or great event, so when I was directing these people it was about after you come to the end of a long journey, you’re struggling; or something good is going to happen, so you’re a hero; or on a precipice; so they’re building up to this event when you’re looking at the pictures.
It’s tailor-made for actors, isn’t it?
Yes, they’re the perfect subjects. Acting and photography go hand in hand. Video is one thing, but acting and stills is the perfect match. You have a photographer with all these ideas and art, and you have an actor with all their experience of how to feel, how to move, how to change. Acting and photography go hand in hand. Actors are there to be programmed, the best actors are the most malleable people.
Patrick Stewart and Judi Dench are among your sitters for this project, but so are Ant and Dec…
Ant and Dec were a difficult one. It was the first sort of serious portrait that they’ve done. In the portrait they look like wise guys, they look like two men who you owe money to… so serious and non-approachable. They’re not normal Ant and Dec. I said to them, “don’t be presenters anymore, you were trained as actors.” I was playing around with them as if they were gangsters, pondering, pausing in a serious way, so it was an anti-ant and Dec picture.
What was your first experience of Renaissance art? Can you remember the painting and how you reacted?
It goes back to when I was at university. I studied medieval history and medieval literature – I never studied to be a photographer, we were studying the late Renaissance period and the Tudors. I was looking at artists like Holbein and was fascinated by some of his works, for instance Sir Thomas More’s portrait. Portraiture became a big interest and that was it. While doing that I was also doing film history. It was like a side course and we did a bit of cinema history – the tutor looked at German Expression cinema from the 1920s and how that took inspiration from Caravaggio, and it kind of linked together for me.
Which university did you go to?
I went to King’s College, London, so I had plenty of opportunity to go to the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery – that heightened my inspiration.
And now you have pictures of your own hanging in the National Portrait Gallery
I’ve been doing this for 15 years now and I’ve got seven pictures there. So, from going there as a kid, looking around and thinking, ‘oh, they’re nice,’ now I’ve got pictures in there. It is important to me. The first thing Nadav Kander will say to
you is, if you want to be a portrait photographer, or any type of photographer, you have to look at fine art for inspiration. He’s right. In terms of photography or portraiture, if you don’t quote the greats – Caravaggio, Titian, Holbein, Ribera – you’re not taken seriously. It’s also enjoyable, the beauty of the lighting, creating this chiaroscuro, especially with these faces.
Was photography even a passing interest at university?
Not until towards the end of my degree. I was browsing through a photography magazine that had a portrait on the cover and I loved the portrait, because it reminded me of German Expressionist cinema and I thought I’d have a go at that. I started off with a Canon AE-1. My dad used to have one, which I’d steal if he let me, and I practiced with some friends, trying to create portraits, and it became a passing interest. As I came to the end of my degree I decided I wanted to work with models, people who know what they were doing, and just fell into it that way. So, it was like a passing interest that became a serious hobby, that then became a serious profession.
Was it immediately portraiture that you were drawn to?
I did everything. Originally, fashion was my first interest. My first few jobs were with hair models, then that developed into fashion, and when I thought I could make some money, I started to do weddings. It was interesting to do, but it was never fulfilling. It was only when my
Acting and photography go hand in hand. Actors are there to be programmed, the best actors are the most malleable people
first actors started coming to me for headshots that I thought, ‘why don’t you direct these actors, why don’t we try this character?’ They became my models and I tried to make them look like a hero or a villain, because that’s the essence of an actor’s headshot. My actors became my inspiration and that was what propelled me forward.
Have you done hair or weddings since then?
Over a period of 15 years I’ve ditched everything else; I’ve ditched the weddings; I’ve ditched the models; the hair work; the family groups. The only thing I do now is portraits and head shots.
That’s a speedy evolution for someone who’s still in their 30s…
One of the impetuses in the end was when I was approaching 30, so this is eight years ago: I was watching Game
of Thrones, sitting in my pyjamas and I thought to myself, am I going to be doing this for the rest of my life? I was still doing weddings and models, I don’t want to do this, it’s not fulfilling.
What did you decide to do?
I came up with an idea for my first project, which was the Northerners project, because Game of Thrones was much about being from the North or the South. I’m from the North, so I set about writing letters, because I wanted to do this project to get recognized, and that’s how I got Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen, I wrote letters and made phone calls trying to pin people down for a sit. That brought my career forward because it was on the BBC, it was in the press. Calumet sponsored it and put it in their stores, it went to a gallery exhibition and some of it was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, so by doing a project I propelled myself forward.
You have become a specialist!
I only offer a simple product. It’s the same thing I say to people all the time: if you go to Five Guys for a hamburger, they only offer one product. Hamburgers. All I offer my customers is classical portraits.
Okay, so what about your lighting set-up? Is it all studio lit and controlled?
It’s all in a controlled environment. I don’t like unpredictability, so there’s no window or natural light involved. When I go into a studio I can position the lights and control my set-ups. Most of them are one or two lights, there’s nothing elaborate. I only use umbrellas, soft boxes, snoot cones, modifiers.
What about your sitters?
They’re all on sitting stools. I use Lastolite
Do projects and find a compelling face. You’re nothing without a compelling subject.
backdrops. Most of my sittings last a very short time. If I’m doing a paid sitting for a client it lasts about an hour, no more than an hour and a half. If it’s a celebrity you’re looking at 15 or 20 minutes. For Judi Dench that sitting lasted about 20 minutes. My quickest sitting was William Shatner, that was five minutes. I flew to LA for five minutes!
He only gave you five minutes?
Yeah, he was done after five minutes. He said, ‘Okay, we’re done now.’ I shot him a second time and he gave me ten minutes, a third time I got 15 minutes, I went to his ranch. I’m doing his 90th birthday portrait in September, so maybe he’ll give me 20 minutes for that!
Do you use the same Canon camera and lens?
Well, for a Canon camera the perfect portrait lens is a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2l. If I’m using Canon, which is 80 per cent of the time, then I’ll use the 85mm f/1.2 because that’s the most perfect portrait lens. I picked up one for less than a grand from WEX. It’s a pure piece of glass, that’s what I always recommend to clients.