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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 24, 1982)
c e I e b r i tj photographer by Davin Seay "I like spontaneity, the look and feel of something happening and the ex citement of trying to capture that moment. What I do when I'm in front of the camera is really worlds away from what I do behind it." In either case, photography has been very, very good to 27-year-old mega-model Christie Brinkley A photogenic fashion phenomenon, Ms Brinkley, in seven short years, has proven her lensworthiness by becoming one of the highest-paid models in the business; her sensa tional face and figure raked in $2 million worth of high-fashion maga zine layouts, television, and print advertising in the last year alone And by this time next year. Christie's trademark good looks will be at tracting filmgoers' fancies when she appears in her first starring role as the mysterious blonde in the red Corvette in National Lampoon s Vaca tion. sharing the screen with Chevy Chase and Beverly d Angelo. "I love modeling." Christie as serts. adding with a quick laugh, "but not only for the obvious rea sons When I model, I learn and I've been learning from some of the best " What this Malibu. California, na tive and current New Yorker is learn ing is the photographic art. a dominating obsession for her since high school days A talented visual artist in more than one field. Chris tie turned to photography with characteristic energy and en thusiasm when, as a junior high school graduation gift, she received her very own Nikon camera "I was Interested in an arts career, she recalls, "and was devel oping my painting and drawing But photography really spoiled me There was something so immediate about it. a very direct kind of creativ ity I got very heavily into black-& whlte work, built my own dark room in the basement, and started dabbl ing in special effects It was around the end of the whole psychedelic era and the point was to make things as weird as possible I was really into screens and gels and strange expo sures It was a good introduction to the possibilities of the camera' A high school painting and pho tography tour of Europe clinched hei interest in film Even when she returned to Paris to study painting at Le Grande Chaumiere, working part time as an illustrator, her bur geoning fixation with photography kept her busily clicking "I'm totally self-taught," she admits, "and I think that puts me at a little disad vantage. I carry around Upton's pho tography manual wherever I go. but I still feel I don't know as much as I should. Of course. I'm in a great po sition now " It's an admirable understatement It was in Paris that Christie was first approached to model and, climbing with astonishing speed up the hec tic, highly competitive fashion lad der. she quickly found herself pos ing for such stellar names as Hel mut Newton. Mike Reinhart. An thony Scavullo, and Anthony El court "I listen and watch." she con fides, "and when I don't understand something, I ask" As much as Christie Brinkley can and does learn from these re nowned photographers, the calcu lated, precisely detailed world of fashion photography bears little re semblance to her own work. Her in terest in the blood, sweat, and sen sationalism of professional boxing is one of the unusual aspects of Christie's consuming interest in the camera "I'd never really understood the appeal of boxing, she admits. Guys I knew would just flip, drop ev erything to watch a good bout When I came back to the States, all I heard about was this big fight, Muhammad All's last with Larry Holmes I decided to go to Las Vegas to check it out It was sort of a dare really Everyone said I'd never get in. there were no tickets, it was the event of the century I ended up in the front row. shooting like crazy." Such are the advantages of a fa mous face "I just walked right into the press party the night before," she explains with a laugh "I was recognized and I guess they thought I belonged." Boldly going where no woman had gone before, she intro duced herself to legendary fight promoter Don King who secured her a ringside seat. "It was the most ex citing thing I'd ever seen," she enth uses "I could hardly load the cam era Almost everything I shot that night was out of focus, but by some miracle a few just fell into place. It was magic just to be there." Subsequently becoming the cen ter of considerable interest in the sports media. Christie was im mediately pegged as a de-facto woman boxing expert, offering off the-cuff and often quite accurate fight analysis to the eager media An early fan of Christie s work was Rina Muiwzini’ editor Randy Gordon, who hired her to cover dozens of bouts around the country "I went to every fight I could," she continues i started meeting a lot of old-time professional boxing photographers — real characters They were great giving me tips and telling me not to be afraid to get my elbows up in the ting I'd end up at the end of the evening wringing with sweat and trembling with excitement I think I was as exhausted as the lighters" Traveling light — usually packing a Nikkormat and Olympus OM-2 cameras and no more than three or four close-up and wide-angle lenses — Christie confides the secret of good boxing photography "An ticipating the punches You've got to familiarize yourself with a fight er's style and try to think and see as he does looking for openings, probing for the opponent's weak spots." A high point in Christie s boxing photography career came when Don King hired her to shoot the training session for the Leonard/Duran bout in New Orleans. "About a week be fore the bout," she recalls, "Roberto Duran decided he wanted to train at the Louisiana State Prison With an atmosphere like that, the pictures couldn't help but be great." Aside from boxing, Christie also has a growing interest in photo graphing Formula One racing, thanks to her boyfriend. French racer and champagne heir Olivier Chandon. “In any kind of sports shooting it helps to have a special in," she says, "someone to get you behind the scenes to where the ac tion is really taking place. "It's unusual for me to take a pic ture without a person in it, doing something That's why the work I did around the Grand Canyon was a real change of pace for me." On location earlier this year for National Lampoon's Vacation. Christie, as were countless millions before her, was drawn to the timeless splendor of the Grand Canyon. "It was strange," she muses. "It's such a monument that it's difficult to know just how to approach it. A lot of times I felt as if someone had just rolled an enormous backdrop in be hind me. It got me thinking about new ways to photograph land scapes. to try and avoid the cliches. In the end I tried to cap ture a feeling more than anything. Not so much the majesty of it all, but the little things . the details that make it seem real." The Grand Canyon, as well as other locations in the Southwest stood as a unique challenge to Christie's discerning photographic eye. "I needed to get beyond the tourist shots, to find something that gave a sense of the utter emptiness of that place. So much of it is not the glorious desert landscape you've come to expect but really huge expanses of nothing. That's at least as interesting to me as the mesas and sunsets." This attention to detail carries over into Christie's sports photog raphy. "1 want to put together a book on boxing from an outsider's view. To pick up on the small things that escape most people's vision. It's boxing beyond the punches. To me, the expression on the face of a boxer’s girlfriend is at least as inter esting as what's going on in the ring. It’s all part of the excitement, the spontaneity, and that’s what makes photography so different from any other form of expression. The ability to capture and hold that split sec ond when it all comes together " While m beetle* fer National Lampoon's Vacation, Cbrittle ipandered eft bite a mrndew end befriended bee celts, whe seem te prefer bbndes ... Christie Brinkley oh her tain# shots. "You've got to . . think end see as [o fighter} does ... looking for openings, probing for the opponents weak spots.”
