“Make sure you get outside,” George Lange called after me as I left his studio. “It’s a beautiful day today.” It was unseasonably warm, but Lange, a photographer known for capturing whimsy and joy in his subjects, saw the good in it. Lange has photographed Andy Warhol and Steve Jobs, but he wants you to know that he could photograph you, too.
Lange was born and raised in Pittsburgh but spent many years of his career working with for renowned publications like Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone in New York, Los Angeles, and Boulder. Now, he has a studio space in the Garfield neighborhood where he displays some highlights of his work. “I was living in Boulder and I had this realization that what connects all of my work is trying to recreate the joy I felt growing up in Pittsburgh,” he said. “I had a lot of fun, but I never really understood why I was doing it until then.” He decided to really hone in on that joy in his work and move back to the place where he first experienced it.
Photographer George Lange Wants to Be Blown Away
When Lange heard fellow Pittsburgh-born photographer Duane Michals speak while he was attending the Rhode Island School of Design, Michals said, “Don’t show me what I already know.” Lange then incorporated that philosophy into how he shoots. “The easiest thing I could do is take the pictures that have already been taken. I want to reinvent the stories we tell,” he said.
“I want to be blown away,” he said. “i’m just looking to find inspiration and learn things and grow from everything I see around me every day. So many people just show us what we already know.” In his photographs, he tries to capture something no one else has ever seen through use of props and staging.
When he photographs the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he gets seasoned classical musicians to loosen up and laugh. He got violinist Sean Juhl to stab his camera lens with a violin bow. He asked Martha Stewart how she looks when she’s been out drinking until two in the morning, resulting in an intimate and arresting shot of someone known mostly for domestic warmth and cutesiness rather than sex appeal.
Lange sees photos as “little secrets”
Lange calls his photographs “little secrets,” where the subjects reveal something about themselves in an intimate context. He took the only posed portrait of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs together. But, rather than being stiff and businesslike, the two tech entrepreneurs are laughing, youthful exuberance on their faces. When he came to Nobu to photograph Chef Nobu Matsuhisa, he saw that the sushi chefs were asleep underneath the table, so he posed Matsuhisa on a table on a literal “bed” of rice.
It’s easy to get caught up in the fame factor of the celebrities Lange has photographed. But he wants to do more for Pittsburgh organizations and local families. He sees a future in the city’s cultural scene and feels a sense of hopefulness in the city. He also does corporate “photo activations” where he gets companies together in pictures where CEOs and receptionists are on the same level. More than anything, Lange tries to inject everything he does with that joy and inspiration.
A more joyful side of Lange’s classmate, Francesca Woodman
His newest project is an exhibition of his pictures of Francesca Woodman, a RISD classmate who became a known for her darkly sensual images. Woodman died by suicide at the age of 22, but at the time she and Lange were at RISD, they goofed around and experimented creatively. His photos of Woodman are in the Rizzoli’s photobook Portrait of a Reputation. When he showed me a copy of the book from his archives, a print of Woodman sitting in her photo studio slipped out of the front cover. He didn’t know he had stored it in there. In his photos, Woodman’s usual intensity is replaced by a private playfulness. “The whole narrative about Francesca’s life has become about her suicide. Not a lot of people saw this happy, gentle side of Francesca,” he said.
Those photos will be on display in an exhibition at Bottom Feeder Books on November 2nd. “People always ask me ‘what makes a good photograph,’ but that’s like asking what a good kiss is,” he said. “You want to use all your senses. I like my pictures as much as possible to be fun. My photographs are evidence that I was never bored.”
Story by Emma Riva / Photos by George Lange
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