My Expressive Portraits Exhibition is enabling me to seek out opportunities to undertake Portrait Sittings with some impressive stars of stage, screen and TV. This has necessitated a fair amount of hopping back and forth across the Atlantic as I aim to bring a depth to the exhibition that would not be possible by staying on English turf only. I first wrote to impressive Director and compelling Actor, Andrew J Robinson, hoping to include him in a Los Angeles trip last September. Having not heard back from him at the time of departure I hoped I would instead be able to undertake a shoot with him on my 2016 Los Angeles trip. However, I was pleasantly surprised, when arriving in LA, that there was an email from him, keen to take up the opportunity. Robinson heartily agreed to sit for a Portrait Session and we arranged a day in Studio City to do the shoot.
Being somewhat of a Trekkie, Robinson was high on my ‘hit list’ for entries to my Expressive Portraits Exhibition owing to his role as Garak in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. However, Robinson is also notorious for his entrancing portrayal of the first psychopathic killer, Scorpio, who shattered our nerves in the film Dirty Harry, as well as playing the part of Larry Cotton in the horror film Hellraiser.
Interestingly, on meeting Andy, I discovered that whilst he attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he had shared a room with the famed Brian Cox, the subject of a sitting I completed last year. This felt like proof of the small world nature of the world of Portrait Photography as well as adding depth to my exhibits on a personal level.
As for the sitting itself, I found Andrew Robinson to be a complete natural in front of the camera. Whilst you may think this is the case for all actors, the stationary ‘screen shot’ of photography can phase some actors not used to the non-transient nature compared with rolling film. Not for Andy! The theme of the sitting was Character Acting, and Andrew rose to the challenge to incorporate this essence in to each shot, capturing character on camera. I captured a series of varying expressions with a particular focus on the more odious and extreme in tribute and recognition of the many nefarious characters he has played. From a personal point of view, I particularly love the second portrait as it conveys a vicious and expressive pose with Robinson’s eyes boring in to the viewer with his steely gaze.
It was a pleasure to undertake the sitting with Andrew Robinson in Los Angeles, and I look forward to incorporating the portraits in my Expressive Portraits Exhibition.
