Shooting Stars [antikvár]

"The eyes are the scouts for the heart." —Gurraut de Borneilh dward Steichen's portrait of Greta Garbo is ray all-time favorite STAR photograph. It became so imprinted on my mind the first time I saw it, at the Museum of Modern Art, that anytime I wish to see it again, I merely close my eyes and there it is. It has all the spontaneity of a 35mm candid, and yet it was made with an 8 X10 camera. I remember reading about this sitting. Steichen was given ten minutes with Garbo on a movie set between takes. When she sat down in front of the camera, he was disturbed by the way her hair had been done for the film. "It's too bad we're doing this with that movie hairdo," he said. At that, she put her hands up to her forehead and pushed her hair away from her face. His response was immediate: he released the shutter of his camera. "Don't move if you stay exactly as you are without changing anything your hands the expression on your face I will take the greatest photograph anyone will ever take of you." I don't know if these words went through Steichen's mind at the time or what he actually said to her. I do know that he caught a moment of great beauty on an 8 x 10 glass plate that changed my perception of women and photography. • The photographs in this book, Shooting Stars, are full of this kind of heart. That is because its author, Ricky Spears, chose these photographs with his heart rather than with his head. —BERT STERN New York, February 1992 Edward Steichen Greta Garbo 1928