NEW YORK — Photographers, as a rule, don’t worry too much about efficiency. As long as the end result is good, they don’t mind wasting some film along the way.
Alexander Berg sees it differently. A Swedish-born commercial photographer, Berg believes there’s a special magic in that first click of the shutter that can’t be recaptured. For four weeks earlier this year, Berg and a collaborator, art director Hugo Redwood, tested this idea, installing themselves in a West 44th Street storefront where they offered a free portrait to any passerby who wanted one. The sole condition: Berg took only a single image of each subject. The results of the project, called One Shot New York, will be on display beginning April 27 at the DKNY flagship on Madison Avenue as part of the Whitney Museum’s “Where Fashion Meets Art” fund-raiser.
The appeal of the single-exposure rule, said Berg, is that it requires presence — on both sides of the lens. “I think it makes portraiture much more intimate,” he said. “There’s a heightened concentration of both the subject and the photographer.”
This is actually the second iteration of the One Shot concept. For the first go-round, in 2003, Berg and Redwood, along with Berg’s wife and project manager, Erica, set up shop in a large studio off Times Square, where the abundant space and steady stream of actors wandering in off the street lent a theatrical feel to many of the photos. The portraits taken in the tiny new space — a former Kodak film store — are, one the whole, more naturalistic and searching.
On a 20-degree day in February, people were lined up along the block, waiting for Berg to begin shooting. The line moved slowly because Berg spends 15 or 20 minutes with each subject, talking through ideas for the portrait. People were encouraged to offer their own inspirations, and to bring costumes and even props.
“Alex is one of the most empathetic people on the planet,” said Redwood. “As an ex-model himself, he’s incredibly generous about making people look the best they can.”
“It becomes a lot about matching someone’s expectations with that moment in time,” said Berg. “The photograph is really about where they were instead of what they wanted. There’s a lot of photo therapy that goes on.”
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It’s not always so thoughtful, however. While some people crave a photo confessional, some just want to expose some skin. “I’m shocked by how many people want to get naked,” said Berg. “Actually, I’m not shocked anymore.”