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May 28, 2010

the hemmed lines of William Klein

Great exhibit of Klein’s work [from his Rome period hanging with the likes of Fellini] in the beautifully redone arcades of the Trajan museum going on right now. The story behind this photo:

In one shoot in Rome, Klein positioned himself on the Spanish steps above the Piazza di Spagna, with a telephoto lens. He wanted first to capture a lot of activity on a busy street without drawing attention to himself, and secondly to flatten the perspective so that the figures would look as though they had been pasted onto a backdrop. He got two models to walk back and forth across a pedestrian crossing, doing double-takes as they passed each other to reflect the fact that they were wearing similar dresses with stripey detail.According to a stylist working for Klein on the shoot, the scenario eventually caused havoc when people started to stop and stare and traffic came to a virtual stand-still. But Klein kept shooting, intent on achieving the appearance of a throw-away moment. The idea of contrasting the dress stripes with the pedestrian crossing was a smart one – but could have looked contrived. The activity surrounding the models as they crossed the street adds reality to the situation.

Though the version of the story given in the museum said the situation escalated to a wolf-pack groping & they had to stop the shoot for the safety of the models.