Renowned photographer Schatz focuses on actors

Howard Schatz presents a lecture and images to feature both sides of his work.   

By Joy Hakanson Colby for the Detroit News                                                                            

March 15, 2006

     Playing an alcoholic who fell off the wagon at a company party, Jason Alexander grasps his head and lowers his eyes.

Robert Vaughn, for his part, goes from a kindly pediatrician to a pompous senator giving a speech on the American way.

Edie Falco shifts from grieving mother to delighted little girl tattling on her brother.

While they were emoting, New York photographer Howard Schatz recorded their expressions for his new book, "In Character: Actors Acting" (Bullfinch Press, $50).

In all, he photographed 100 stage, screen and television performers, showing how they reacted to scenarios he dreamed up to prime their emotions and acting skills.

"I'm very tuned in to the creative process, yet mystified by it," he says over the phone from his studio in New York's SoHo district. "I admire the human being who can take words and act them."

Schatz, who is known for his creative advertising campaigns as well as his art photography, will wear both hats when he comes to Metro Detroit this week.

On Thursday, he will discuss "The Anatomy of an Advertising Shoot" at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. On Friday, he will open an exhibit of his art images at the Museum of New Art (MONA) in Pontiac.

"My advertising jobs are like grants to pay for my art," he says. "I'm shooting all the time. The idea is to make pictures that surprise, delight and push the boundaries."

"In Character: Actors Acting" is Schatz's 16th photography book. He's covered a range of subjects, including athletes, nudes, dancers and redheads.

When he decides upon a subject, he admits he's persistent. For instance, he says he pursued actors "with many, many phone calls and lots of begging and cajoling." The book took between two and three years to complete.

Along with photographs, the MONA exhibit features a video showing Schatz at work with Robert Klein, who pushes his face into exaggerated expressions with his hands at Schatz's commands.

Film critic Roger Ebert, who wrote the foreword to the book, admits he was "a little stunned" by questions the photographs raised. "In praising film acting, was I actually praising direction, technical excellence or a kind of illusion using the actor like paint or clay," he wrote.

As an art photographer, Schatz won't tell.