“I have a genuine philosophy. I do not want to make negative pictures about people and so I do everything I can to help make them feel comfortable in front of the camera. That is what is going to control your picture because you are alone if your subject is not with you and that’s the simple answer to getting a good picture.”
~ Douglas Kirkland
(1934-2022)
“You can be gorgeous at twenty, charming at forty and irresistible for the rest of your life.”
~ Coco Chanel
(1883–1971)
Douglas is a 27-year-old, up-and-coming photographer who lands the commission of a lifetime—one that many of his older, more famous peers would kill for. The great Look magazine sends him to Paris to photograph the celebrated, but often tetchy, fashion designer Coco Chanel, who at 79 years old is embracing her golden years.
She is at first somewhat cold to this young man she has never heard of. She tests him by asking him to photograph some of her models in the studio. She likes what she sees and melts to his charm, and together they make magic.
There is a reason this image was chosen for the cover of his beautiful book Coco Chanel: Three Weeks, 1962: it is his best shot of Mademoiselle. She is more Chanel here than Chanel. The artistry and the artist become one.