Not long ago an attractive young woman called
at the G. Paul Bishop studio in Berkeley, Cal., to make an appointment for a
portrait sitting.
"Are you familiar with my style of
portraiture?" Bishop asked.
She wasn't.
"Do you want a glamour study?"
She did.
Bishop smiled and jotted something on a paper
pad.
"I've written another photographer's
name and address," Bishop said. "He'll be able to give you the
kind of portrait you want."
The young woman left not realizing that
Bishop specializes in a style of portraiture that few other commercial
photographers would dare attempt.
That style is simply to show people as they
really are. It offers no flattery and glamour --- being the acme of flattery
--- is out.
When a subject sits before Bishop's camera he
understands that he is going to get nothing more than what he came in with
--- his face as it appears without the benefits of soft lighting, retouching
or other alteration.
According to Bishop: "God gave you a
particular face. My job is to record it, not to undo or cover up what nature
has done."
Realism Takes Courage
Few people have the courage to see themselves
in this realistic light.
Curiously enough, Bishop was once one of the
country's top-ranking glamour photographers. He adopted his present approach
in the last war1 when he found a new set of values and became
determined to pursue sincerity and honesty. He found he could achieve these
pursuits in his work by showing people as they really are and became a
follower of the purist school sometimes called the "f/64 Group."
Like other purists, among them Edward Weston,
Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Bishop stresses naturalness, frankness and
truth. Unlike other purists he is the first to apply the rigid rules of his
school to commercial portraiture --- a field which, for financial reasons,
has traditionally sought to flatter its subjects.
While Bishop's portraits are straight-forward
accounts of his subjects, his portraits are not mere snapshots or
passport-type photographs. Each contains the elements of composition and
photographic craftsmanship which lift it above the ordinary. What makes them
inimitable is Bishop's intuitive ability to get through the subject's
psychological shield to portray the real person.
Bishop's aim in each portrait is to show
nobility, potential or existing, which he believes lies in every man.
Bishop Seeks Sharp Focus
Bishop uses a 5X7 German view camera with a
12-inch foal length lens. He stops down to f/32 to get everything in
razor-sharp focus from the point of the subject's nose to the background ---
including any freckles, wrinkles, blemishes, moles or other skin defects
that might be in the area2.
His exposure is usually 1/10 second, using a
fast panchromatic film and one no. 11 flashbulb, high and to one side of the
subject, with a silver reflector opposite to bounce back fill-in light.
"you should never be conscious of the
lighting when you look at a portrait," Bishop says.
But more important to Bishop than lighting
and exposure is putting the subject at ease. Let's follow through a sitting
to note his techniques:
A physician calls at Bishop's home and is
admitted into the comfortable living room studio. He would not suspect it to
be a studio because Bishop purposely keeps his photographic equipment
covered so his subjects will feel at home. Bishop and his subject talk
and Bishop shows him examples of his work. The doctor looks at his watch and
suggests they get on with the sitting. Bishop asks him to return in three
days so that he may have sufficient time to plan the picture.
"Don't Dress Up" --- Bishop
As the doctor is leaving he asks, "How
shall I dress for the picture?"
"Don't dress for the picture,"
Bishop warns. "Wear whatever you feel most comfortable in."
The doctor returns three days later (usually
dressed for the picture) and again they talk and Bishop encourages him to
smoke for relaxation. While the conversation is going on Bishop uncovers his
photographic equipment, arranges it and composes his picture on the ground
glass. He is ready to shoot but doesn't.
Relaxation Is Important
By now the doctor has become self-conscious.
Bishop invites to inspect a new portrait at the opposite end of the room,
while he quietly changes the position of the chair. When the subject sits
down again he unconsciously turns his face in the direction which Bishop has
chosen for the portrait.
Bishop refocuses on the chair, arranges his
light, sets the exposure and inserts the film. Now he asks the doctor to sit
down. What follows happens quickly and before the subject again has time to
become self-conscious, the shooting is over. This sitting is typical in that
the subject was a man. In the past four years Bishop has photographed
approximately 15 women --- a sharp contrast with pre-war days when his cliental
was almost exclusively female.
When Bishop opened his plush studio in
Oakland he had just finished a training course in glamour photography at a
Hollywood movie studio. He had hardly unwrapped his bear rug and set up his
spotlights when customers began calling. In a few years Bishop's wallet grew
thick and his bear rug wore thin. So did his patience. Glamour photography
offered him no means of self-expression and he felt a general unrest.
This unrest was still with him when he
entered the U.S. Navy in early 1942 and was made senior photo officer.
"I felt," Bishop says, "that I
had some sort of mission in life and a potential expression was always
trying to creep out but was never quite making it."
Much of this unrest disappeared after he
participated in the second battle of the Philippines. From this experience
he emerged with a new set of values. His portraits form that point on,
reflected the dignity and nobility which he now found in his fellow man.
Returning to civilian life Bishop abandoned
the glamour studio and opened his present studio in Berkeley. When customers
learned of his straight-forward approach they hurried elsewhere for a more
complimentary portrait. Former Oakland customers who thought Bishop had
moved his glamour studio to Berkeley called and were politely turned down.
Despite his need for business, Bishop determined not to resort to his
previous style.
No More Glamour Shots
Only once did he break this rule when two
intimate friends insisted that he do a glamour study of their daughter who
was applying for a job as a night club singer. Even after two separate
sittings he found it impossible to take another glamour portrait. And he has
never again attempted it.
His determination was so strong that when
business was slow he hired out as a carpenter to support his family and
studio. Gradually, however, people started to notice the natural charm of
his portraits and his business increased. Bishop also received encouraging
praise from leading artists and from other photographers, among them Edward
Weston. Such important figures as Adm. Chester Nimitz; Robert G. Sproul,
president of the University of California; and Hubertus J. van Mook, former
acting governor-general of the Netherlands East Indies, sat before his
camera.
Today Bishop enjoys a solid reputation in the
portraiture field. He has recently illustrated 10 covers for the California
Monthly, alumni magazine of the University of California, has a limited
but sufficient clientele and is regularly asked by camera clubs to explain
his new technique.
That technique, Bishop feels, is still in the
process of development.
"I look at yesterday's work and see
what's wrong with it," he says. "I'd hate to feel that I'd ever
arrived. Art --- be it literature, painting, or photography --- must be a
continual growing process. Thus, I hope that the last portrait I take before
I die is my best."
__________
1. World War
II.
2. This particular statement caused one
shocked reader to write, in the follow up issue of American Photography's
"Positive and Negative" section, a scathing letter to the
editor:
Dear Editor,
I was shocked by an article which introduced the work
of Mr. G. Paul Bishop. His technique apparently consists of photographing
people as if he photographed bricks or lumber. The idea of photographing
anyone with a naked lens and then stopping it down to f/32 "to get
everything in razor-sharp focus" is like looking at someone with a
magnifying glass.
When I look at people, I don't see minor defects of
their anatomy. I see the person, and when I photograph someone, I
certainly don't wish to magnify any defects they may possess. Some
photographers are not aware of the fact that there are many types of
cameras and lenses available, and each camera and lens has its uses. A
surgeon performing a delicate operation doesn't use a hammer and a chisel.
He has his fine instruments and each performs a certain function. A
butcher, on the other hand, has his instruments which serve his purposes
very well.
The photographer who uses one camera and lens to
photograph everything in sight, whether it's human, animal, vegetable or
mineral, doesn't know his business; and the school which taught him is
ignorant of its functions.
Roman Freulich
Republic Productions, Inc.
North Hollywood, Calif.
__________
Lafkas, Nicholas P. "g. Paul
Bishop." American Photography. Volume 45,
No. 7, (July 1951), pp. 399-402.
