Editor’s Pick: The Double Act by Art Streiber

Photo © Art Streiber

I’ll admit it: this photo partly caught my attention because Veep, the political satire on HBO, is one of my favorite shows right now, and I love almost anything Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tony Hale have ever done. But there’s something else about the joint portrait, taken for The New York Times Magazine by Art Streiber, a seasoned entertainment portrait photographer who’s shot his fair share of personalities, including Will.i.am, Jimmy Kimmel and Rod Stewart, among many others.

This time Streiber was tasked with shooting a hilariously complex platonic relationship—between the Type-A go-getter Selina Meyer (Louis-Dreyfus) and her eager-to-please “bag boy” Gary Walsh (Hale)—that is a “singularly awkward, brutal, tender, nonromantic romance,” as the NYT Magazine writer Sam Anderson describes. Streiber paired what sounds like an emotionally complicated assignment with a simple concept.

“I wanted Hale to be subsumed by Louis-Dreyfus, I wanted her to smother him affectionately and feel his desperate attempt to cling to her,” he says. “Placing him just below her emphasizes their inequality and putting them both in black turtlenecks melds them into one.” Shot with a Hasselblad H4X paired with Profoto strobes, Streiber sprinkles in just enough dynamism to reflect the comical yet heartwarming dysfunction. 

MORE LIKE THIS

Editor’s Pick: Punctuating Motion by Russ and Reyn

Illuminating Celebrity Personalities with Clever Lighting

Patrick James Miller: A Master of His Environment