Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (born 1952) is an American portrait photographer whose work is in numerous museums. His images can be seen in publications worldwide and he is a contributing photographer to Vanity Fair. He gained much attention for his 2004 book XXX: 30 Porn-Star Photographs (ISBN 0-8212-7754-5). His most recent portrait series of injured soldiers back from the war in Iraq have been published and exhibited worldwide.

Muses

Greenfield-Sanders has photographed such diverse figures as Orson Welles, Monica Lewinsky (his photo was used on the cover of her memoir), George H. W. Bush, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Madeleine Albright, and the Clintons. In 1999, he had an exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York City called "Art World", 700 portraits of artists, art dealers, art collectors, art critics and other denizens of the art community; this collection was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He also makes films including "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart" about the musician Lou Reed (which won the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video in 1999) as well as one on performance artist Karen Finley and for HBO "Thinking XXX" about the making of his porn star book.

Beginnings

A native of Miami Beach, Florida, Greenfield-Sanders completed his undergraduate studies in Art History at Columbia University, and began his photographic career while in film school at the American Film Institute where he received his Master's Degree in Film. Asked to shoot visiting lecturers, he learned about such things as lighting and framing from well-known actors and directors, including Bette Davis and Alfred Hitchcock. During his ensuing thirty year career, Greenfield-Sanders has become known for being both technically competent and especially adept at making his subjects feel comfortable.

XXX

Greenfield-Sanders got the idea for XXX after watching the film Boogie Nights, about the porn industry in the 1970s. "I found with porn stars that they're much more comfortable nude than they are clothed. They're energized, and they feel more in control." XXX included pictures of porn stars clothed and on the facing page, the star naked in the same pose. The thirty included were Sunrise Adams, Briana Banks, Belladonna, Seymour Butts, Christy Canyon, Chloe, Nina Hartley, Jason Hawke, Chad Hunt, Heather Hunter, Jenna Jameson (who is on the front cover of the book), Jesse Jane, Janine Lindemulder, Ron Jeremy, Jeremy Jordan, Kira Kener, Reina Leone, Michael Lucas, Gina Lynn, Ginger Lynn, Sean Michaels, Peter North, Tera Patrick, Mari Possa, Lukas Ridgeston, Tawny Roberts, Savanna Samson, Aiden Shaw, Lexington Steele, and May Ling Su. The book also featured essays from Gore Vidal, Salman Rushdie, John Malkovich and others.

HBO chronicled the making of the book for a documentary titled Thinking XXX which was released on DVD in the summer of 2006. This film was directed by Greenfield-Sanders and edited by Lukas Hauser.

He is a resident of New York City.

As of May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

External links

• His official site
• Profile of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders in Art in America by Sarah Valdez [1]
• TV interview with Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on 60 Minutes click this to watch[2]
• Shutterbug profile [3]
• Red Cross Pro-bono work [4]

References

• Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. XXX: 30 Porn Star Photographs New York: Bulfinch Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8212-7754-5
• Mel Gussow. "Photographing Celebrities, Even Those of an X-Rated World". New York Times. July 29, 2003. B1.
• David Rimanelli. "Double Exposure on Timothy Greenfield-Sanders". Artforum. September 1, 2004.
• George Rush and Lorna Molloy. "Lensman clicks with the Lust Generation". New York Daily News. August 5, 2004.
• Calvin Tompkins. "Unzipped". The New Yorker. November 11, 2004.