The Art of Portrait Photography

Thom-Hoffman-dutch-actor_klinkhamerphoto

June Newton partner of photographer Helmut Newton dies at 97. RIP 10-04-2021

June Newton-photographer

Under the pseudonym Alice Springs, June Newton earned her spurs in the seventies and eighties as a portrait photographer of the greats of the earth. Artists, politicians, royalty, she got everyone in front of her lens. “And the funny thing is, I’ve never been to Alice Springs,” she says. “In 1970 I started to publish my photos and asked Helmut under what name I wanted to work. We took an atlas and opened it on my native Australia. I closed my eyes and poked somewhere on the map with a needle. He stuck in the middle of the continent, on the town of Alice Springs. “That is your name,” said Helmut. “

John Irving bestseller author
John Winslow Irving is an American-Canadian novelist and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978.

For this portrait of John Irving, we met at an Amsterdam five-star hotel located on the canals. I brought with me a portable light studio and a white backdrop. John proved to be a very cooperative and talented model. From the images, I shot all pictures were very good and this image was used for the HP/de Tijd magazine. Sometime after the first publication, six portraits of John were used for six paperback dutch cover picture versions of his popular books.

IK JAN CREMER

Portret-Jan-Cremer-2011

Jan Cremer is a legendary artist from Holland. He wrote a bestseller book in 1964 that was self titled, I JAN CREMER. During his long career he published a string of books and his art painting is widely collected around the world. For this image we recreated his famous 1964 book cover with a brand new Harley Davidson this time. This image is an out take from that session for a car magazine, in color. I like this version because of the depth perspective, the moodiness and his relaxed manner of posing.

Marion Bloem

Peter Post

portret peter post michael klinkhamer
Peter Post was a Dutch professional cyclist whose career lasted from 1956 to 1972. Post competed in road and track racing. As a rider he is best remembered for Six-day racing, having competed in 155 races and won 65. Because of this success he was known as “De Keizer van de Zesdaagse” or “The Emperor of the Six Days”.

Of Course I knew about Peter Post and was invited to his villa on the outskirts of Amsterdam for Esquire magazine. I also knew he was like me the son of an Amsterdam butcher. In the old days I was told, cyclists had to put a tender piece of meat inside their cycle shorts to protect their behinds. So, I brought him a good juicy and bloody steak and did some pictures with that. Blood running from his hands. For those people who know a thing or two about the hard life of a professional cyclist understand the connection was clear. But even without the bloody steak, you can see the scars and stitches in Peter Post’s worn but still good-looking face.

Jan Montyn

Jan-Montyn-Dutch-artist-by-Michael-Klinkhamer
Jan-Montyn-Dutch-artist-writer was a Dutch artist, specialized in etching.  He was best known for his paintings of wars to which he had been a soldier and survivor.

I met Jan Montyn for the first time prior to a magazine photoshoot 20 years ago. I was not so much aware of his incredible life story then. This time we had a much more personal connection but Jan was facing health issues and did not live much longer. I personally like the introspective character of this portrait of a man who witnessed hardship and wars and came out of that incredible life of war and conflict to be a great etching and writing artist.

Thom Hoffman

During the late 1980s early 1996 I was full time working for many glossy magazines. This portrait of Thom Hoffman was made for RAILS, an inflight magazine for the Dutch railways.

I used the romantic travel aspects into this image. Thom Hoffman dressed in a nice trench coat, reminding us of Humphrey Bogart. His reflection in the window worked perfectly with his casted film roles. Playing a handsome but somewhat conflicted character in his latest movie, The Fourth Man, a psycho thriller.

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Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo-Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci was an Italian director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha, Stealing Beauty and The Dreamers.

At the time of my meeting with Bernardo, he was working on the Sheltering Sky movie. One of all time favorite movies and book by Paul Bowles. This somewhat introspective portrait was shot in a very small production office in London, using a film spotlight and my trusty Hasselblad camera.

Roman Polanski

Roman-Polanski
Roman Polanski is a Polish-French film director, producer, writer, and actor. Roman is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.

I was able to have a private portrait sitting with Polanski in the Pulitzer hotel Amsterdam. The bronze statue of the young female in the background refers to his personal life regarding relationships with women.

Peter Klashorst

Peter Klashorst is after 60 years of making art a 100% certified “art barbarian” and one of the last art Mohicans. He was at a very young age confident enough to sell his first paintings and never stopped. We met before in the late 90s for a magazine picture in Amsterdam and we had immediately a good interaction and fun. We met again in Cambodia late 2010 for to cover his art latest show about the killed Khmer Rouge victims that he photographed at the Tuol Sleng torture museum in Phnom Penh and then he recreated their images on life-size intense painted canvases. I wrote the six-page feature article and images for this article published in HP/de Tijd magazine. After that, we did many more articles and newspaper stories. https://michaelklinkhamer.blogspot.com/2011/05/peter-klashorst-in-phnom-phen-cambodja.html

Pim Fortuyn

Portrait photography of the controversial politician Pim Fortuyn with bare torso - Michael Klinkhamer
Portrait photography of the controversial politician Pim Fortuyn with bare torso – Michael Klinkhamer
pim fortuyn_dutch politician_klinkhamer photo
Portrait photography of the controversial politician Pim Fortuyn with bare torso – Michael Klinkhamer