32 pages in GQ for one photog

Remember some of the big photo essays back in the day in Life or similar magazines that very few publications would do anymore? Well the November GQ has one. And it's done all by one photog. Jeff Riedel followed the US election campaigns of Obama and McCain for nine months for GQ and the result was a huge spread in the November 2008 GQ. An amazing variety of colour, black and white, portrait, studio work, environmental, posed and convention shots. You can see it here, but it does look better in hand as in this Vimeo video from APE - complete with page turning noises :)


Rob Haggart at APE has a great accompanying interview with Reidel too which started me off on this post.

I certainly have more than one fav, but I think that one of the more interesting shots is the one of Roberta McCain ( Senator McCain's mother) shot between Pres GHW Bush and Barbara Bush. It was at the RNC convention in St. Paul, Minn. Very shallow DoF on her. And curiously, though both clearly - all be it blurry- who they are, neither the former president or first lady are identified in the caption. Quite cool editorial decision. I would have done that one it in bw, but that's just my preference for everything. The whole essay was shot on 4x5 and 6x7 format cameras too. All film. As Reidel put it in his interview with Haggart:

The magazine wasn’t very keen on digital and I can understand why. It’s a historic election these are going to be historic pictures and there’s still an integrity to film and while we can still do it we should.

© Jeff Riedel, for GQ

**If the embedded video doesn't play on Facebook, check out the original post on my blog.

Mike

Mike Wood Photography