Quentin Tarantino Stays Cool

 500 weeks #36

 

Quentin Tarantino is ready for his close-up.
Photo taken with a vintage Rolleiflex TLR using Fujifilm RHP Provia 400, cross-processed as a negative

I’m at the front door of the camera store, face pressed against the glass, hands shading my eyes as I try to see if anyone is inside. I had already tried the front door, but it’s locked. As I am in no way a morning person, I doubt I arrived before the store opened.  I hear the “BZZZZZZZ” of a door buzzer and try the handle again.

 

Bingo! This time the door opens and I’m in. Except, I’m not.

 

It’s the spring of 1992, and I was in New York City, hunting for a good copy of a specific camera: A Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex, usually just referred to as a Rollei TLR. It belongs to a category of cameras know as medium format. “Medium” as in the size of film it uses is not small, like 35mm, or large, like 4”x5”. 

 

Medium format cameras use film that measures 2¼” (about 60mm) wide, resulting in prints with higher details and smoother tonality than 35mm.

 

Rollei TLRs were extremely popular with professional and amateurs alike from the 1940s to the late 1960s and then they faded from prominence. They were also plentiful in the used market and not hugely expensive.

 

I had looked around Toronto and could not find one that I wanted, so before my trip to NYC, I looked at the ads in a few photo magazines and decided to check out two stores: Adorama and B&H Photovideo.

 

Adorama is where I have gotten through the front door, only to have stepped into a small space where I am greeted by another locked glass door and have to wait until the door to the street has fully closed and locked before getting visually checked out – I guess I seemed okay – and only then can I get the buzzer signalling the second door is open, so I can actually enter the store.

 

Once fully inside I am confronted with a long, narrow space, with high ceilings and a counter all the way down the left side. Behind the counter are shelf upon shelf of cameras and accessories, with a library ladder, than can be wheeled all the way along, so anything high up can be accessed.

 

In the middle of the store, behind the counter, there is a large opening in the floor.  Every now and then, a voice will emanate from below, with something like ”Nikon. F4. Coming up” and a box would come floating up in the air from the opening. Just in time, someone up top will have moved over to the opening and answered back with “Nikon. F4. Got it.” as they snatch it out of the air and carry it to the purchaser.  I’m shocked, but for the staff, it seems this is just standard procedure. Maybe they all have experience working as airport baggage handlers.

 

I take this all in as I’m getting the once over by the sales team. One of them gives me a head nod, and asks – in a very New York accent - “What can I getchya?”

 

I respond with “I’m looking for a Rollei TLR.”

 

He is unimpressed “Why you want a Rollei? They’re old. Get a ‘Blad. They’re new.”

 

I’m insistent: “I don’t want a “Blad. I’m looking for a Rollei.”

 

He seems totally uninterested.

 

Meanwhile, the gentlemen on my right is having box after box placed on the counter as he is purchasing an entire camera system with possibly eight to ten lenses. 

 

My sales associate goes wondering off to retrieve some old Rolleis for me from the used section.

The voice in the floor comes back again: “Nikon. Three hundred mil”. The box floats up into the air. The answer comes from above “Nikon. Three hundred mil” as it is snatched out of the air.

 

My sales rep returns and sets up a few samples for me to look at. I do the once over of an f/3.5 model that has caught my eye. I start trying to focus and operate it. He repeats: “Why you want a Rollei? They’re old. Get a “Blad. They’re new.”

 

In my head I’m thinking, the Rollei TLR was good enough for Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton and David Bailey. If it was good enough for them, it will suit me just fine.

Plus, I thought it looked cool. So I remain insistent with “I’m good with the Rollei.”

 

This however, was my first planned stop, so I put the camera down, and thank the gentleman for his time. He wants to know “Where ya goin’?” I tell him I want to look at another place. I can see he figures he just wasted his time.

 

As I’m walking away, the sales rep on my left is piling up a half dozen boxes for his customer and the voice from below is proclaiming” “Blad. Five hundred C. Coming up.” Even so, my sales rep points out, in a loud voice: “Just remember, it’s Friday. We close at one.”

 

I get to the front doors, get buzzed out – twice - and make my way to B&H, where I am confronted with a truly unique sight: All over the ceiling are conveyor belts, surrounded by cages. It seems the customers chose their purchases with sales associates, which are deposited into plastic bins. The associate then inserts the bin into the track system, which carries the gear to the front cash. Only after payment is received - in full - is the customer allowed to access the contents of the bin. It is then but a few steps and the customer is through the exit door, into the street and completely out of the store.

I could not imagine anyone ever shoplifting a single item under that system.

Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen at the "Reservoir Dogs" press conference during the 1992 Toronto International Film Festival. 

 

B&H is the bigger store but once I check out their used inventory, I decided they have nothing I am interested in, so I go back to Adorama. I get the double buzzer symbol of acceptance and head back to the same salesperson. He’s in shock.  “Ya came back!??”

 

“Yes. I’ll take that Rollei.”

 

“Why you want a Rollei? They’re old. Get a ‘Blad. They’re new.” I have to say, he is very consistent.

 

He retrieves the camera, as well as some accessories. I think I also bought a lens shade and maybe a camera case.

 

The sale associate started writing up the bill, by hand, on a little machine that holds multiple copies of the paper receipt on a roll. A copy for the store and one for me. As he is writing down the details of the purchase, he lowers his head and wiggles his fingers, indicating that I should move in closer. He looks to his right and pauses. He looks to his left and pauses. He is obviously making sure the coast is clear, because we are doing something clandestine here. The price of the camera is marked as being $269.00 and in a low voice, so no one else can hear, he utters “Don’t mention it” as he writes in – hold your breath - $265.00 on the bill.

 

I won’t mention it, because four dollars – a difference of 0.0149% - is not a savings worth mentioning. But I have to say: he sure had a flair for the dramatic.

 

I spent the next few months getting used to the Rollei’s quirks, the biggest one being that everything is backwards in the viewfinder. Because there is no pentaprism involved, everything the photographer sees inside the viewfinder is horizontally reversed. If you are aiming the camera at someone who is pointing to the right, inside the camera they are pointing left. It’s a bit of a brain cramp at first, but with experience, you to learn to pan the camera in the opposite way of how you want to adjust the composition.

 

We have all been gathered together for a family photo, only to wait – and wait – as the photographer in the family fusses with the camera settings. I never wanted to be that photographer. Particularly in front of a movie star or an “A” list director. 

 

When the next edition of the annual Toronto International Film Festival came around in September of 1992, I was shooting assignments for Eye Weekly, which had a much larger audience, profile and circulation numbers than my original client, Share Newspaper. About 400% larger. That jump in market share got me much better access to performers and events. 

 

I got a tip from the film editor of Eye that there was a lot of buzz about “Reservoir Dogs”, one of the independent films at that year’s festival. She told me the film’s writer/director was in attendance at the Festival and doing media interviews and suggested I set up a photo shoot.

 

Which is how I came to be in front of Quentin Tarantino, with my Rollei.

Mr. Tarantino getting serious in Toronto in 1992

This was not a photo shoot tacked onto an interview, as there was no writer involved that day, just Mr. Tarantino and I, trying to come up with an interesting photograph.  I got the sense that both of us were feeling a bit awkward, but were trying to act calm and cool in the other person’s eye.

 

I turned a chair around backwards, he stratled it and we did the best we could. Mr. Tarantino changed his position and expression, while I changed lenses. I started shooting with my 35mm Nikon, and then pulled out the Rollei. Mr. Tarantino takes a look and proclaims: “Hey, cool camera!”

 

Yes. Yes it is.

 

And he is one of nine Academy Award winners I have photographed with it.

Mr. Tarantino was photographed with the Rollei TLR on the left.

Technical stuff: Square photos shot with a Rolleiflex TLR with 75mm f/3.5 Schneider Xenar lens. Rectangular photos taken with a Nikon FM2 35mm film camera with Nikkor 35mm f/2.0 and 85 mm f/2.0 lenses. 

 

All images taken on Fujifilm RHP 400 ISO colour transparency film and cross-processed as negatives in C41 chemistry. Hey, it was very trendy at the time. I grew out of it.

Lighting is with a Speedotron D200 and a single head bounced into a small umbrella.