“To tell the truth, he succeeded in everything he undertook. And it rather scared me: I thought he would be a failure, ”said Shirley Ritz, the mother of the famous Los Angeles photographer Herb Ritz, one day. Ritz combined several aspects: he was a photographer, director of music videos and image-maker, and more precisely, he was a chronicler and myth-maker of the culture of the 1980s and 90s. The only thing he never became was a failure.
The future photographer received a degree in economics from Bard College (New York), where he also studied art history. He started out in the family business Ritts Co, producing furniture that was often supplied for filming in Hollywood. Ritz acted as a sales representative. At first, photography was a hobby for him - shooting family, friends, home events, but it was an amateur photo taken on a trip to the California desert that brought fame to the photographer and his friend, actor Richard Gere. Buick Le Saber, a punctured tire, a garage in San Bernardino, Gere in a white T-shirt, dirty frayed jeans with a cigarette in his mouth and his hands firmly thrown back behind his head, emphasizing a perfectly built body. “I don’t remember if I told him to throw his hands behind his head or I just recorded the very moment when he stretched,” Ritz later said. This is the plot of a legendary shot that was released after the release of the movie "American Gigolo" in 1980. The first professional commission was a photograph of Jon Voight and Ricky Schroder in 1978 during the filming of Franco Zeffirelli's The Champion. The photo was published in Newsweek magazine in the "Famous Person" section.
Drawing with clean lines and strong forms is the photographer's artistic credo; the naked body is his favorite subject. The photographer's neoclassical manner does not turn his models into frozen marble antique statues like Robert Mapplethorpe's. These bodies are rather molded from clay, they are incredibly plastic. Here it will be interesting to compare "Male Gymnasts" (1950) by George Plat Lines and "Pierre and Yuri" (1999) by Ritz: fixed static, the fossil of some and flexibility, pulsating dynamics of others. The photographer once said that for him there is no significant difference between a female and a male naked body, but "if there is anything important, it is the attitude, position and how it is conveyed."
His models were athletes and bodybuilders, well-built boys and girls, fashion models and actresses. The 1989 book Men / Women clearly demonstrated the beauty of human forms. In some images there is a clear distinction between masculine and feminine, in others, on the contrary, sensually intertwined bodies lose their clear gender boundaries, turning into a single whole, as in the case of "Tony and Mimi" (1987). The topic of "body interlacing" reaches its apogee in the works published in the book Duo (1992).
As in his portraits, Ritz is a master of detail in the nude. Ritz was probably convinced that the part, in this case the body, is not inferior in expressiveness and compositional construction to the whole. He creates emphatically simple compositions, focusing on the choice of pose, angle and light. And even the absence of color (the photographer works exclusively in black and white) does not limit the completeness of perception. Ritz loves the natural landscape - sea, beach, sand, rocky shores and cascades of water. Nature, of which man is a part in his pristine nakedness, serves as an excellent complement to his nude and some portraits. In the naked body, the photographer is interested not only in the body, its shape, flexibility, texture and light, but also in its sensual, sexual side. At the same time, Ritz often turns a completely individual body into an abstract form, as, for example, in the works "Demi Moore" (1996), "Boris Baker IV" (1997), "Cindy Crawford". This approach definitely feels Ritz's receptiveness to Edward Weston's legacy. But Weston is not the only photographer whose work has influenced Herb Ritz, among others - August Zander and Alexander Rodchenko, Bruce Weber and George Plath Lines, Irwin Pan and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Fewer objects in his photographs are not just beautiful accessories, they are always a continuation of the image, at the same time a visual and semantic accent that provokes certain associations or enhances the expressiveness of another object. Thus, a composition of dead and dried plants is involuntarily associated with a fancy wig (Nate and the tumbleweed, 1986), just like the octopus on Djimon's head (Djimon with the Octopus, 1989). Associations are born through the non-trivial use of shadow - this is how the zebra woman appears (Woman with Shadows and Nate with Shadows, 1985). The chosen angle, facial expression and painted black face make the man look like a mythical centaur ("Tony with a Black Face", 1986). In another case ("A Man with a Chain", 1985), the object further emphasizes certain qualities of the body: the chain personifies iron strength and flexibility, like a man's body, and repeats the relief of stretched muscles. Ritz loves to work with texture, to collide and juxtapose various surfaces, evoking tactile sensations: a body covered with sand ("Woman with Black Sand", 1989), draped in fabric of an unusual texture ("Hidden Torso", 1989), exposed by a cascade of water (" Waterfall ", 1989) or a transparent veil (" Consuelo ", 1984;" Male torso with a veil ", 1985).
In the depiction of the male nude body, it can be difficult to separate beauty from the homoerotic message. Herb Ritz, in his 1984 Garage series, captured a sequential series of photographs of a group of mechanics, beautifully folded, glistening naked torsos, busy with their daily routine in a repair shop. And although the main message of the image is, first of all, strength and independence, the dress code and the environment on a subconscious level create a kind of homosexual fantasy. Many other works of the photographer are also filled with homosexual allusions.
That he does not make a significant difference between shooting a male and a female body, Ritz once again confirmed with his work for the famous Pirelli calendar in 1994 and 1999. The latter was called very symbolically: “Women - decade after decade”. The name not only reflected the plot - every month each model represented a decade - but also in many ways the essence of photography itself, fashion, beauty, for which it was a woman who was the inspiration at all times. The style in clothes and hairstyle, the parameters of female beauty changed - all these are external details in the work of photographer and stylist Lauren Scott (she is also a costume designer and creative director), the main thing was the correctly captured mood, the essence of each time. Famous supermodels Sophie Dahl, Michelle Hicks, Alec Vek, Liticia Casta, Sandra Noth and others posed for Ritsu.
Ritz's creativity generally fell on the golden age of the fashion industry and top models. Thanks to his work, it will forever remain in history and in art, to which, of course, photography also belongs. The most famous work in this direction is the group portrait of nude supermodels Stephanie, Cindy, Christie, Tatiana and Naomi (1989). This is a kind of concentrated image of the fashion industry of the 1980s and 90s. His work has been featured on the pages and covers of magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar and GQ. He has worked with design brands Donna Karan, Gianni Versace, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, Guess, Gap, Revlon, Chanel and Cartier. Many of his works were too provocative, such as the portrayal of actor Mark Wahlberg in Calvin Klein underpants. Herb Ritz's style has become the standard of fashion and advertising photography.
Ritz has created an entire gallery of celebrities from the worlds of film, fashion, politics, music, sports and art. Here are just a few names: Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, David Bowie, Dizzy Gillespie, Madonna, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Sean Connery, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Edward Norton, Charles Bukowski, Roy Lichtenstein, Boris Anel Baker Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev and many others. Ritz conceives and builds a number of photographs according to the principle of metonymy, when a certain expressive and characteristic detail creates an image of an acutely individual whole. Such is the smile through Jack Nicholson's magnifying glass or Dizzy Gillespie's cheek. But sometimes this detail turns into an emblematic symbol, understandable only to the initiated: an open mouth is all that is "left" in the picture from the comedian actress Sandra Bernard.
He makes some portraits emphatically classic: Steve Martin, Al Pacino, Nelson Mandela, Sean Connery, Edward Norton, others grotesque - Jack Nicholson in a clown mask from the movie "Batman" (the image for the film was invented by Ritz), Madonna with Mickey Mouse ears, Jim Carrey as a mermaid. There is another type of portraits, where the heroes, with the help of stylists, makeup and not without the participation of natural similarity, are reincarnated in the image of another celebrity: Dustin Hoffman in Salvador Dali, Michelle Pfeiffer in Clark Gable. Others' faces become almost stencil profiles (Boris Baker, Daraty, Cameron).
In 1994, another book by the photographer called "Africa" was published (in total, eight books were published during his lifetime: Herb Ritts, Work, Kazu, Africa, Notorious, Duo, Men / Women, Pictures), which was the result of his travels in the East countries in 1993. Landscapes, animals and people of the Massai tribe living in a timeless space became the main themes for the photographer at this time. But even here Ritz remains true to his manner - an interest in detail in its expressive and semantic quality, a play in association and clarity of lines. The intertwined tree trunks resemble both a snapshot of two giraffes and intertwined bodies from the Duo series at the same time, and Christy Turlington's portrait (1988) bears a certain artistic resemblance to that of Correy (1993). To some extent, there is almost no difference between images taken in Africa and fashion photographs, portraits of celebrities taken in Los Angeles.
Herb Ritz is also successful in the music video industry (two prestigious MTV awards). He made the first one in 1989 for Madonna on the song Cherish, the photographer is also the author of the image of the future pop diva. Then there were clips for Janet Jackson, Chris Isaac, Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey in the same black and white aesthetic for Ritz.
In the works of the photographer - the complete absence of aggression in any of its manifestations, physical strength, care, beauty and freedom become the leitmotif of his images. What Ritz filmed, he felt, is fully confirmed by his phrase: "I think that the fact that I felt comfortable and happy, enjoying what I did in my personal life, inspired me."
If not for this photographer, we would hardly have cried over the films "Hachiko" and "Pretty Woman". After all, it was he who "wrote out the pass" to the set for Richard Gere himself. Who knows how the fate of the fatal handsome man would have turned if he had not met a novice photographer at an ordinary gas station in the late 70s Herb Ritts... However, it is not known whether Ritz himself would have achieved something worthwhile without the black and white photographs of young Gere.
In those years, Herb Ritz worked part-time in a furniture store and attended evening courses. He submitted his work to magazines, and one of them was even featured on the cover of Newsweek. But the starting point is still considered the day when Herb took brutal pictures of Richard Gere. Now the whole world knows Ritz as a brilliant photographer who takes black and white photos of celebrities, as well as works stylized as ancient Greek statues. The artist has shot for such magazine "monsters" as Interview, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and also worked with major "fashion" companies: Giorgio Armani, Revlon, Chanel and Calvin Klein. In addition, the Coat of Arms ranks among the most successful photographers of the last 50 years.
Since childhood, the famous photographer was not afraid of "stars" of the first magnitude, because he grew up in a wealthy family in Beverly Hills and lived in their environment. He easily won over people and made friendships. Under the sight of his lens, everyone felt "at ease" and relaxed. Perhaps this is the secret of super successful celebrity shots.
Herb Ritz did not like studio lighting, preferring sunlight to it, so his favorite filming location was the beach. Interestingly, the photographer preferred the so-called "golden light", which was from three to six o'clock in the afternoon. He also always strove to ensure that there were glare in the eyes of his characters, believing that this makes photographs especially vivid. Ritz made models run, jump, roll on the ground, laugh; he watered them with a mixture of salt water and sand. Interestingly, throughout the entire shoot, the photographer always used only one lens, as he did not consider it important to change equipment.
The Ritz coat of arms, as well, shot twice for the Pirelli calendar. In 1994, his models were Helena Christensen, Cindy Crawford and Kate Moss, and in 1999 - Bridget Hall and Laetitia Casta. He also shot commercials and video clips. Especially popular are Madonna's Cherish and Chris Isaac's Wicked Game. At various times he made videos for Michael Jackson, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Jon Bon Jovi and other stars.
But back to the photographs. They are exquisite in their simplicity and simple in their genius. It would seem that surprising: a female figure in a translucent drapery. But just look how he did it!
The fabric emphasizes all the contours of the body, flutters behind a train and covers the heroine's face so gracefully and refined that there is nothing vulgar or even erotic in this picture, but there is beauty in its true form. There are only two colors - black and white, but there is so much emotion and chic in this "modest" color palette!
Or this masterpiece shot. Have you ever seen Julia Roberts like this?
It's almost impossible to recognize her! The photographer dressed the actress in men's boxers and a T-shirt, and added a men's watch to her fragile wrist as an accessory. Who would have thought that this outfit could look so sexy! And notice how Roberts laughs happily in this picture!
But Herb photographed not only women. He skillfully knew how to work with men, capturing their figures on film. This work for Vanity Fair magazine is a vivid confirmation of this.
Ritz used a huge chain to highlight his character's masculinity and strength. And look how the ovals of the chain resonate with the roundness of the muscular arms - this is also no coincidence. The picture turned out to be very stylish, sensual and emotional.
Another work of the photographer is worth noting: a portrait of Antonio Banderas. He, like Julia Roberts, looks very strange, almost unrecognizable, only a glance suggests that we are facing a cult actor. How much expression, brutality and strength there is in this black and white picture! How beautifully the smoke blended into the almost bestial appearance of the model!
Brilliant and simple again. However, it is possible that it was easier for Herb Ritz to work with men because of his unconventional orientation.
Herb Ritz died on December 26, 2002 in his native Los Angeles from a long illness (pneumonia). But over 50 years of his life, he managed to make a real revolution in the world of photography and become a legend. It's great that photographs can be kept after the death of their creator, preserving the memory of his unique work ...
“I think he sees beauty in everything,” said Hollywood actor Edward Norton, one of the countless stars Herb Ritz has photographed. The exhibition dedicated to the work of this famous American photographer only confirms his words: people and things in his photographs are shown as perfect, idealized. More than 20 years later, the cult of the human body of the most beautiful models of all time in Ritz's photographs continues to fascinate and remind us that beauty can be appreciated for the sake of beauty itself. See the famous shots of Herb Ritz, the beauty photographer.
30 PHOTOS
1. Woman at sea, Hawaii, 1988. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).
Simple black and white portraits in natural light, with play of light and shade and dramatic contrast are the hallmarks of the work of Herb Ritz, a Los Angeles-based photographer who died in 2002 at the age of 50 due to complications from AIDS.
2. Claudia Schiffer, Malibu, 1989. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). The photographer in his works drew inspiration from Greek statues, which captivated him with their grace, monumentality and perfection of forms. This is probably why most of the heroes immortalized by him look like beautiful ancient statues in the pictures.
3. Nate and the tumbleweed, Paradise Cove, 1986. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). An exhibition of the photographer's work is held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and is called "Herb Ritz". It is the largest retrospective of an American photographer in history and the most popular.
4. Carla Bruni [approx. the author is the wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy], 90s. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). As Vogue magazine wrote about the exhibition of Herb Ritz's works: “The mythical beauty in his photographs has not aged. It's like a return to the old school of Hollywood glamor and fame, where reality plays out with fantasy. "
5. Present and Zen, El Mirage, 1999. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
6. Female torso with a veil, Paradise Cove, 1984. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
7. Dizzy Gillespie [approx. the author is an outstanding virtuoso trumpet player], Paris, 1989. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
8. Sylvester Stallone and Bridget Nielsen, Long Island, 1987. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
9. Bridget Nielsen in Malibu, 1987. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
10. Elena, Hollywood, 1996. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
11. Cindy Crawford, Ferre 3, Malibu, 1993. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
12. Mick Jagger, London, 1987. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
13. Floating torso, St. Barthélemy, 1987. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
14. Naomi Campbell, Face in Hand, Hollywood, 1990. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
15. Naomi - Heavenly Bodies, Los Angeles, 1990. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
16. Stephanie, Cindy, Christie, Tatiana and Naomi, Hollywood, 1989. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
17. Michael Jordan [approx. the author is the greatest basketball player of all time], Chicago, 1993. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
18. Stephanie with a flower, 1989. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
19. Claudia Schiffer, Palmdale, 1992. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
20. I am nude, Miami, 1997. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
21. Richard Gere, San Bernardino, 1987. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
22. Christie in white, Los Angeles, 1988 (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
23. Wrapped torso, Los Angeles, 1989. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 27. Backflip [approx. the author's flip jump], Paradise Cove, 1987. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
28. Nude woman with black sand, Hawaii, 1989. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
29. Christy Turlington, Hollywood, 1988 (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). 
30. Famous photographer Herb Ritz, born in 1952, died in 2002. (Photo: Herb Ritts Foundation). Everyone saw his work. He published six photographic books, photographed virtually every famous person in the world and revolutionized the nude genre. An exceptionally sharp-sighted portrait painter who brilliantly performed the hymn to the beauty of the human body.
We have prepared for our readers a story about Herb Ritz and a large selection of his works.
Herb Ritts is often referred to as the legend of glamorous photography. He was born in California - a world of sandy beaches and picturesque huts, a cult of a beautiful body and bronze tan. Among his neighbors there were many celebrities (for example, right behind the fence, the young Ritz had Steve McQueen's house, and the famous director himself often rode the boy on his motorcycle), but the future photographer did not rely only on useful acquaintances, but studied diligently.
After completing a degree in economics, Ritz returns to West Hollywood and works for his parents' furniture firm specializing in filming props. In his spare time, he attends photography courses, while studying the history of art. It was then that he became closely acquainted with the rules of classical composition, the art of the Renaissance and photography of the early 20th century. The future master was especially impressed by the work of the German photographer Herbert Liszt, formal and avant-garde at the same time:
Keeping in mind the classical canons of fine art, in his subsequent work, Ritz always carefully chose the angle and light, and paid special attention to detail.
Carier start
His career as a professional photographer began in 1978 with a coincidence:
“I knew one girl, Penny, she was an actress. Penny was supposed to come to my house one night for a portrait shot, but she didn't. Her boyfriend came instead, as he thought to meet her at my place. I asked him to allow me to take some pictures, he was embarrassed for a long time and refused, but I still photographed him that day. This is how I met the then unknown beginner actor Richard Gere. "Herb Ritz
Richard and Herb quickly became friends. One day, while driving on a deserted highway, they punctured a tire. In his garage in San Bernardino, Gere lifted the car onto a lift and changed the tire. It was then that the famous photograph was taken where a tired actor in a sweat-drenched T-shirt poses with a cigarette in his hands. Just a year later, fame came to Richard Gere, and this picture got into Vogue, Mademoiselle, Esquire magazines.
“I don’t remember if I asked him specifically to get into this position, or if I just pressed the button while he was stretching.”Herb Ritz
 |
 |
A year later, when he was on the set of The Champion, Ritz took several pictures of John Voight, who played the main role there. One of the photos was featured on a movie poster, and another was bought by Newsweek.
Ritz confidently built a career as a commercial photographer and made new and useful contacts. Through the mediation of renowned photographer Bruce Weber, Herb earned his first big royalties (this was shooting for the book "The Menswear Book: Fashionable Suit and Proper Care"). The photo session of the American model Brooke Shields for the women's magazine Mademoiselle was so successful that in 1980 the same photos appeared in the magazine Elle. After that, the photographer was regularly invited to conduct photo sessions in popular glossy magazines.
Body beauty in the work of a photographer
Ritz fully corresponded to the letter and spirit of the times. It took him only five years to get on the covers of world famous publications such as Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, GQ and Interview. Franca Sozzani, editor-in-chief of Italian Vogue, was delighted with the rising star in the photographic sky and took The sparkling world of Hollywood and haute couture with the cult of a beautiful body reigned there readily accepted the young photographer, because he showed exactly what they wanted to see there.
“It's hard to say which is older - the work of Ritz or the cult of a beautiful body. In general, they are one and the same. "Journalist Brian Appleyard
It was the cult of the body that became the leitmotif of all the work of Herb Ritz. The photographer found an inexhaustible source of inspiration in him - he admired the smoothness of the skin, developed muscles, flexibility and strength, the way muscles play under directional light ... He shot collections of leading fashion houses - while clothes seemed only a minor detail on the perfect body of supermodels. In the "portrait" of athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersey, we do not even see her face - only shadows from her head and shoulders in the sand, the photographer's gaze is concentrated on the movement of her hips while running.
Ritsu especially enjoyed working with dark-skinned models. Their skin seemed to shimmer under the light of studio spotlights or under the hot African sun, turning their bodies into real works of art (in Africa, Herb filmed representatives of the Maasai tribe - and each of his "models" sent a copy of the published book with her photograph!).
Nude photographs by Ritz are not like photographs in the general sense of the word - they are rather images of bronze statues by ancient masters. This is, for example, the famous series of photographs "Fred With Tires", taken in 1984 in Hollywood. It shows a half-naked man of athletic build working in a repair shop - these photographs became the basis of the advertising campaign for the Levi's jeans line.
In 1989, Ritz took his famous group portrait in black and white. On it, remaining true to himself, he captured a whole galaxy of modeling stars naked. The scenery in this photo is absent as such, all attention is focused on the beauty of the human body.
"Intimate" portraits
In general, Ritz's approach to photographing celebrities was quite abstract. He did not allow the appearance of "visual debris" - nothing should distract the viewer from the subject. At the same time, the photographer often made a visual emphasis on the specific, inherent only to this person, features and traits. The famous evil grin of Jack Nicholson - Joker was emphasized by the fact that the portrait was filmed through a magnifying glass. Or, on the contrary, the actor deliberately half-covered her with his hand with dark glasses ... Glenn Close appeared before us in the form of a mime looking sadly from a photograph. For the shooting of Monica Lewinsky, the stylists initially chose the image of a "bad girl" from a provincial town. Ritz, on the other hand, dressed the girl in an airy dress, but at the same time arranged the frame in such a way that it was simply impossible to tear his eyes away from the luscious lips of the infamous White House intern.
His models have always been confident that the photographer is on their side: “First of all, he always tried to show you beautifully and attractively,” says Richard Gere. Thanks to his relaxed manner of communication, his lightness and openness, which delighted everyone around him, Ritz achieved the trust that opened doors for him where no other photographer would be allowed. "Superman" in a wheelchair - paralyzed Christopher Reeve; Stephen Hawking in the midst of his illness, struggling to articulate phrases; Elizabeth Taylor, who openly demonstrates the scars from brain surgery - they all trusted Ritz, showed the most intimate and opened up completely in his frame.
“Herb was a very holistic person. Once he called me and asked me to turn on the TV, as something was shown about him in the news. I turned on the TV and said he looked great. To which Herb was very offended and exclaimed: “Mom, what does my appearance have to do with it !? I ask you to rate my work! "Herb Ritz's mother, Shirley
Features of shooting technique
Throughout his life, Ritz preferred to work with natural sunlight. Even interior decorations he often installed right on the beach, on the sand, in the open air. The beach has always been his favorite shooting location, it was here that he tried to bring everyone with whom he worked, if only the subject of the shooting allowed such a decision. On the beach, Ritz not only rented, but also lived - his house in Los Angeles was located near the ocean.
“He wanted us to come to him at eleven. We had breakfast, we got our makeup and hair done, then we had dinner. And only then did he take the camera in his hands - his light was from three to six, it was the "golden light".Naomi Campbell
Ritz preferred harsh lighting that created bright highlights in the eyes - nothing else, he said, could make them so alive. He always loved clear lines and complete shapes, for the creation of which he often used not only the outlines of objects, but also the contrasting shadows falling from them.
Also, one cannot fail to note Ritz's love for pronounced textures, to which he always attached great importance. During filming, he often used salty sea water, which he mixed with sand and sprayed on the model's hair, after which he let them dry. He needed texture wherever he could create it.
At the same time, according to him, he was practically indifferent to which camera to use. During the shooting, he often did not waste time changing the lens and, taking one, shot only with it, from the first to the last frame. It doesn't matter what technique you use, he said. It is important what you do with it.
Ritz never used a tripod as he preferred dynamic footage and always wanted to follow what was happening. He made models run, climb into the water, dive, wallow in the sand, jump and grimace in front of the camera. Remaining at a short distance, he himself continuously moved, circling around the model. From the outside it resembled a dance: the model takes a step - the photographer takes a step, and so on.
Released albums
1988. Pictures. Portraits of 80s idols: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Madonna, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Steve Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Sylvester Stallone, Brian Wilson and others.
1989. Men / Women. The book clearly demonstrates the beauty of the female and male body. Ritz creates emphatically simple compositions, focusing on foreshortening, light and pose. The background and accessories are the semantic accent of the photographs. In the photograph "Man with a Chain" (1985), the subject emphasizes certain qualities of the body: the chain personifies flexibility and strength, like the male body, repeats the relief of muscles. Many publications refused to publish pictures in their magazines due to the expressed erotic context.
1991. Duo. 50 nude photographs united by the theme of body plexus. The album is dedicated to the family life of a homosexual couple (Ritz himself was openly gay, admitting this long before it was considered normal). The photographer avoids the use of extraneous distractions, all attention is focused on "two loving and caring for each other young people."
1992. The Illustrious. Reincarnation portraits: Michelle Pfeiffer as Clark Gable, Dustin Hoffman as Salvador Dali, Jack Nicholson as Joker, Clint Eastwood as comedian Stan Laurel, Jim Carrey as a mermaid.
1994. "Africa". The album is dedicated to the wildlife of Africa and the life of the indigenous people of this continent. 75 shots are built on contrast: life - death, beauty - cruelty, strength - weakness.
1996. "Work". The album contains 235 portraits of famous personalities: politicians Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama; artists David Hockney, Keith Haring, Agnes Martin; musicians Dizzy Gillepsy, Bruce Springsteen; sports stars Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Jackie Joyner Kersey; actors Glenn Close, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Sophia Loren, Michelle Pffiffer, etc.
1999. Herb Ritz. The book is an accompanying material for the exhibition at the Museum of the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art. The album includes 100 never-before-seen photos of celebrities (Antonio Banderas, Evan McGregor, Charles Bukowski, Tina Turner, etc.), as well as interviews with the photographer.
One chance meeting can be a turning point in the fate of a person. This is how, by chance meeting, Herb Ritz and Richard Gere changed each other's lives forever. Almost every one of us knows who Richard Gere, the conqueror of the Beauty's heart, is, but very few have heard of Herb Ritz. In fact, we have seen his work hundreds of times, but the people who got into the lens of this photographer are so popular that all the glory went to them. The Ritz lens owns many photographs and video clips of such famous artists as Madonna, Johnny Depp, Elizabeth Taylor, Scarlett Johansson, Cindy Crawford, and the list goes on and on.
Herb Ritts was born and raised in Los Angeles, graduated from the University of Economics, started working in his parents' furniture store, and suddenly became interested in photography. And so seriously that he signed up for evening photography courses, then offered his work to magazines, made connections, but his work was not very popular. Everything was changed by a chance meeting of Ritz with the aspiring actor Richard Gere, a young and so far unknown. The photographer noticed something interesting, special in the guy, and invited him to take some pictures. The young actor liked the editors of the magazines no less than the style in which the pictures were taken. It was these photographs that became for Richard Gere a pass to the world of the film industry, and Herb Ritz decided to seriously engage in photography.
Herb Ritz's photographs are characterized by simple lines, most of them in black and white. Also, critics find his works features inherent in classical Greek sculpture, and fans of the photographer's work say that they loved his pictures for their simplicity, emotionality and naturalness. It was Herb Ritz who persuaded Julia Roberts, Gere's star partner, to put on men's underwear for filming and climb into the icy water. He owns some of the first pictures of Cindy Crawford and Mila Jovovich.
Another extremely famous work of Ritz was a photograph that captured the moment of kissing Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. The photographer was so subtly able to convey the feelings of the actors in the photograph that the fans had no doubts about the existence of a romantic connection between them.
The photographer worked not only in the art portrait genre, but also collaborated with famous magazines (Vogue, Elle ...) and designers (Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein ...), creating unique photo sessions. In 1991, Ritz established himself as a director, receiving the MTV Video Awards for his debut video for Janet Jackson. Probably, we would have seen more than one more work of this talented person, but in 2002 he died of complications after pneumonia.