Greg Gorman, winner of the 2013 PPA Lifetime Achievement Award ...

All images ©Greg Gorman unless noted otherwise
Greg Gorman,
winner of the
2013 PPA Lifetime
Achievement Award,
celebrates a life
of friendships
BY LORNA GENTRY
No
ordinary
friend
Jeff Bridges

“I guess people are recognizing my mortality before I do.
Maybe they know something I don’t.”
—GreG GormAn
Tony Ward

Leonardo DiCaprio

lton John’s face beamed like a vision from a projection
screen above the crowded ballroom. It was early October,
and Greg Gorman was receiving the Lucie Award
for Achievement in Portraiture at the Beverly
Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. “You are a great
photographer,” John told Gorman in his video
address, his voice booming over loudspeakers.
“Of all the photographers I’ve known, I’m
closest to you because we’ve been friends so
long. I’ve had the pleasure of having my picture
taken by you many times. When we had
our son Zachary and [wanted] pictures
taken, you were the only one I could think of
to do it, and you came up trumps yet again. I
love you very much.”
Pierce Brosnan appeared in an equally
heartfelt video. He recounted the day he met
Gorman when the photographer traveled to
the actor’s Malibu, Calif., home in the mid-
1990s. “I’d heard about Greg Gorman and
seen his photographs in Rolling Stone,” said
Brosnan. “I’d seen the great pantheon of players
he had photographed and was blown away
that he was coming to the house.” It was a day
Brosnan would never forget, the actor said,
because not only was he having his photograph
taken by one of the most celebrated
portrait photographers in the world, but he
had just learned he had landed the role of
James Bond in “GoldenEye.” After the photo
session, the two celebrated over
wine and became good friends.
Celebrities, wine, and friendships
have been the core of Gorman’s life
for more than four decades. This
month he will be feted again for his
nonpareil body of portraiture and
fine-art work when he accepts the
PPA Lifetime Achievement Award
at Imaging USA in Atlanta. “I guess
people are recognizing my mortality
before I do,” says Gorman, 63,
chuckling over the phone from his
Los Angeles home. “Maybe they
Photographer Greg Gorman,
know something I don’t.”
2013 PPA Lifetime
Or maybe it’s just the passage of Achievement Award winner
time. For decades Gorman’s photog -
raphy has appeared in magazines, advertisements,
and movie posters. A touring retrospec-
portraiture and fine art. A book of his street
shows the breadth of his work that includes
tive, “Greg Gorman: Distinct Vision 1970- photography, due to be published later this
2010,” which began in Los Angeles in 2010 year, shows Gorman has not lost his affinity
and continues in Europe, the Middle East, for photojournalism, which in part is what
and Asia, including Russia and Siberia, took him to Los Angeles in the first place.
©Andreas Bitesnich
January 2013 • Professional Photographer • 87

obert Deniro

In the late ’60s he was shooting rock concerts
and dreaming of becoming a photojour -
nalist. A native of Kansas City, Mo., Gorman
studied photojournalism at the University of
Kansas, later transferring to the University of
Southern California, where he earned a master
of fine arts degree in cinematography in 1972.
By the 1980s Gorman was shooting for film
studios, ad agencies, and magazines, and by
1989 his impressive portfolio was large enough
to be published in the first of two volumes.
Several books followed, including last year’s
“Framed: For L.A. Eyeworks” (Damiani, 2012),
a compilation of Gorman’s black-and-white
portraits for the eyeglass-maker’s awardwinning
ad campaign. Gorman’s style and
L.A. Eyeworks’ creative advertising resulted
in a symbiotic relationship that earned huge
successes for them both. In the early 1980s,
the company hired Gorman to shoot portraits
of celebrities wearing its stylish eyeglasses,
which were featured in full-page ads in
Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. Celebrities
begged to be in them, including Warhol
himself. Gorman’s photo of the artist wearing
dark sunglasses became iconic overnight.
portraits of personalities I’ve done. I wanted to
maintain the style of lighting that I had devel -
oped [which has] a strong relationship
between highlights and shadows. So basically
I took that, pulled the camera back, stripped
[models] of their clothes, but still worked with
that type of lighting and shape, form, and bal -
ance that I use in my [portrait] photography.”
There are two distinct sides to Greg Gorman
that are perhaps best defined through the
lens of California real estate. He has a home
and studio in Los Angeles, which is strategic
for business in the entertainment industry.
He also has a home up the coast in Mendocino—wine
country—that reminds him of
his childhood. “I go hiking, biking, and fish-
HIRED GUN
In his early 30s, when Gorman was flying
high in his career and flush with selfconfidence,
a friend asked, What are you
shooting for yourself? “At that point I wasn’t
doing a damn thing,” Gorman says. “I was a
hired gun, shooting for all the big motion
picture studios doing motion picture campaigns.
Personal work was a void. I realized
that if I was going to continue as a photographer
and work the way I worked, then I
needed to find an outlet and focus on my
own work. And that’s what gave birth to my
figure studies of male and female nudes.”
He continues, “When I started doing my
nudes, I realized that I’ll probably be remem -
bered for the very close and kind of cerebral
Barbra Streisand

‘‘
Divine
different
rest of my life
artwork
Napa Valley
’’
ing there. I do a lot of the things that I don’t
do as much when I’m in the city.” He shoots
fine art in Mendocino in a personal studio
and in the surrounding rugged countryside.
When asked to choose one house over the
other, he vacillates: “It’s a tough call because
there are things that I really love about my
home in L.A. and all my friends here. But on
the flipside of the coin, I really love it [in
Mendocino]. It’s is a very small community,
a close-knit society. Would I be totally happy
there? I don’t know. I oftentimes ask myself
if I would really want to give up everything I
have in Los Angeles. I have a lot of young
friends in L.A., and I’m a naturally gregarious
person. My friends in the country are more
my age, kind of a been-there-and-done-that
[sensibility]. It’s quite different than the big
scene in L.A., although I don’t consider myself
a big part of the Hollywood scene at all.”
TEACHING FACIAL LANDSCAPES
About seven years ago, Gorman’s Mendocino
vibe began to dominate. He was traveling more
and shooting less commercial work. Teaching
grew important, and he created curricula for
weeklong workshops held at his Mendocino
home. His strength as a teacher, he says, lies
in his ability to show how to see and understand
light and “how to communicate with
the talent. Understanding the angles of a face
and what to play up in the highlights and
play down in the shadows is crucial. Also,
the big thing that people walk away with at
the end of spending a week with me is experiencing
my kind of passion and love of life.”
One of those passions is winemaking; he’s
been a wine enthusiast since his early 20s.
Now he has his own label, GKG Cellars. Vintner
Dave Phinney with Orin Swift wines of
St. Helena, Calif., hired Gorman in the mid-
2000s to create a photograph for the Papillon
wine label. The two became friends, and
Gorman asked Phinney to teach him wine-

Bette Davis

thinks they can be a photographer because all
the cameras have autofocus and auto exposure.
Anybody that can point a camera can get a
good picture, so they think they’re the next
Richard Avedon. The majority of people in
the top-ranked creative positions are a lot of
young kids that haven’t got a frigging clue of
what a good photograph is. Creative departments
today are so far removed from what
they were in the ’80s and ’90s. And celebrities
today have so many handlers on the
periphery that make them so well insulated it’s
much harder to get a succinct and connected
portrait. For me, the rules and regulations
you have to abide by today have taken the
fun out of what I did for so many years.
“I’ve chosen a different approach to the way
I want to spend the rest of my life,” he continues,
“which is lecturing, teaching, working
on my own fine artwork, and making a little
wine in Napa Valley for fun. This year marks a
very big change in my wine production because
I’ll be making 10 barrels of wine instead of one
or two, which means I’m going to have to really
get out there and promote the wine. I sell
enough to more than pay for wine production
costs, make a little profit, and have lots of wine
to share and drink among my friends.” n
To see more of Greg Gorman’s photography,
visit gormanphotography.com.
Sophia Loren
making. Phinney helped Gorman discover
the blend of Napa Valley grapes he liked
best, and in 2006 Gorman created his first
blend. GKG Cellars wine is now served at
the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
Looking back over his work, Gorman
doubts it’s possible any longer to have a career
like the one he’s enjoyed. “Today, everyone
92 • www.ppmag.com
Penelope Cruz