Jerry Schatzberg knows how to put people at ease. Sitting on a black leather sofa in his New York apartment, he speaks in a deep voice, his hands folded, his gaze attentive and measured. “There is an art of seduction,” he says, describing the conditions of a portrait session. “It’s not necessarily the same for everyone. Some people like to be treated with disdain. Sometimes that’s the attitude you need to capture their attention.”
The gaze: Jerry Schatzberg knows it well. He spent much of his life directing models, actresses, and actors. First at Vogue, as early as 1957, then at Glamour, Esquire, and nearly every fashion magazine that took an interest in his work. He attended Alexey Brodovitch’s school for ten weeks, alongside Penn and Avedon, but his career could easily have taken a very different path. “As a teenager, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life,” the photographer recalls. “I could have bought a truck and gone from town to town selling ice cream. My passion for photography came from admiring the windows of Willoughby’s, on Long Island. I looked at those cameras the way you look at jewelry at Tiffany’s. My father, who saw me avoiding work in the family business, was furious.” Schatzberg waited until the age of 27 before landing his first job as an assistant, after answering an advertisement in The New York Times.
Fashion photography soon gave way to portraits of celebrities, including those now exhibited in Paris. In the 1960s, Vogue sent him to photograph some of the biggest stars of the time. He brought to this work his fascination with elegance, tailoring, and visual composition. A photographic repertoire emerged that included Andy Warhol, Yves Saint Laurent, Aretha Franklin, the Beatles, Roman Polanski, Frank Zappa, Steve McQueen, and the Rolling Stones, whom Schatzberg photographed dressed in drag. One of his most famous series remains the one devoted to Bob Dylan, which earned him the cover of the album Blonde on Blonde, released in 1966. At the time, the photographer knew the committed singer only through his music. The meeting was arranged by Nico, singer of The Velvet Underground and one of Schatzberg’s models, who kept insisting he should pay attention to the emerging artist. Later, it was Sarah Dylan, the singer’s first wife—whom Schatzberg had previously flirted with—who led him into the recording studio, which became, for a few hours, a photographic space. Schatzberg adds with a smile: “It’s always a good thing to know women.”
Actress Faye Dunaway, the subject of one of his most famous photographs, became his muse. She appeared in his first film, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, marking the beginning of his career as a filmmaker. Schatzberg recalls that time with nostalgia, reflecting on life on set. “Directing actors and actresses was what scared me the most at the beginning of my career as a director. They have their own language, which you have to learn to speak. More than photography, cinema forces you to make yourself understood. But Woody Allen never speaks, and he’s a genius.” Widely acclaimed at the time, Schatzberg won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973 for Scarecrow, starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. By portraying America’s outsiders through a succession of small scenes, lived or recounted, he outlined a portrait of a society shaped by violence. The metaphor of the scarecrow aptly reflects the perspective of a man who, at 98 years old, still seems to believe in humanity and its capacity for change.
For Schatzberg, who believes every true photographer retains the soul of a child, change begins with sensitivity. It is this sensitivity that led him to devote much of his time to photographing women, seeking to capture their slightest movements. He dedicated a book to them, Women Then, published by Rizzoli, as a tribute. “I fell in love with every woman I photographed,” Schatzberg says. “In the street, they pose naturally like models. There’s no need to bring them into a studio. I like to see them beautiful, to appreciate the honest way they wear clothes, I like to observe their humanity, their humor.” The result is a condensed collection of sensual, playful, and sometimes humorous scenes: Julie Andrews sucking her thumb. Claudia Cardinale pulling her nose “like an animal.” Actress Sharon Tate nude in her bath. Catherine Harlé’s models celebrating the end of a photo shoot in Paris.
Paris, 1962. At 26, Yves Saint Laurent presented his first collection after spending three years as creative director at Dior. Backstage, Jerry Schatzberg photographed a model leaning forward, adjusting her shoe. A monumental hat engulfs her face and upper body, leaving only her legs visible. Schatzberg captured more than a simple moment of preparation. He became the witness to the beginnings of a designer who would redefine his era, and to a turning point in haute couture, still sovereign before the rise of ready-to-wear. In another image taken that same day, he captured a kiss between the designer and Françoise de Langlade, then a renowned editor at Condé Nast.
These are the exceptional moments now brought together in the exhibition at the Paris Cinéma Club. Despite his advanced age, Jerry Schatzberg continues to produce exhibitions, curating them himself. As a lifelong image-maker, he remains fully engaged with his time. “Because if photography has any meaning,” he continues, “it’s to be connected to journalism and to the evaluation of its era. It is a recording of time.” As for recognition of his work, he adds with characteristic restraint: “I was never a good salesman. Maybe it will come after my death, like for many others.”
“Jerry Schatzberg – Filmmaker / Photographer” is on view until February 28, 2026, at Galerie Paris Cinéma Club in Paris.
