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Swiss photographer Florian Kalotay’s subjects range from Hollywood royalty to global music legends. Here, he reveals some of his most memorable shoots, why staying curious matters and how he helps camera-shy subjects relax
As a photographer at a press junket with only a few minutes to take a picture of A-list actor Morgan Freeman, how do you make sure your image stands out from the nine others in the room? That was once the dilemma for renowned Swiss snapper Florian Kalotay who for the last two decades has been photographing people – both as traditional portraits and reportage-style – for publications such as Zeit Magazin, Monocle, FIFA magazine and HTSI for the Financial Times. “My approach depends on who I’m meeting. It can be a homeless person with a story to tell or a Hollywood star but it’s always important to have a plan and be prepared. In the case of Morgan Freeman, I decided to use a black and white polaroid camera which has its own visual language,” he recalls.
I get a glimpse into lives that I would never know about otherwise – that’s what I find interesting.
Granted, Florian typically has much longer to capture the perfect shot but he is no stranger to such pressured situations, having photographed everyone from Formula One racing drivers and restaurateurs to winemakers and potters. “I get a glimpse into lives that I would never know about otherwise – that’s what I find interesting. Really understanding someone’s story helps get to a point where you take a picture that makes sense,” he says. It also makes anyone who feels less comfortable in front of a camera open up. “Probably the most difficult subjects are those that are very private. Then it's good to take it slow and talk first on a personal level so they start to forget a little about the camera. It’s harder nowadays: if you have more than two or three hours with someone you are lucky but I think that being curious about people really pays off.”
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Then there are those, such as electronic musician and DJ Kalabrese, who would rather not show their face at all. “There are different ways to get around it. Kalabrese had an album coming up so needed his photograph taken. I set up a backlit scene so he was a silhouette and asked him to dance to his own music,” remembers Florian. Rather than a subject who stays mysteriously in the shadows, the opposite idea was required for close-up covers of performers and creatives (ballet dancers, opera singers, conductors, directors) from Zurich Opera House. “Mostly these performers wear make-up and costumes so we wanted to show their faces in a natural, pure way, without the cover of their character. We wanted to bring the opera stars closer to the readers,” he explains of the ongoing 13-year assignment, during which time he shot 125 covers for Opernhaus Zurich, the in-house publication.
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Location is another key component. “I’ve photographed a lot of footballers and I always want to show, not the football player but the ordinary person, so I try to choose a different, unexpected environment.” He cites a shoot with Lothar Matthäus, the former captain of the German national team, as an example. “It was early January and I suggested one of the public baths on Lake Zurich at 4pm, when I knew there would be good light. I took his picture and it looked like he was sat in an old-school locker room,” he says. Other notable past settings have included glaciers, a mountain peak at 5am, and a tranquil forest for a shoot with Professor Erich Seifritz of the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Zurich, picked because it’s a place where patients walk as part of their recovery.
Without doubt though, one of his most memorable shoots to date was the late singer-songwriter Tina Turner’s wedding to music executive Erwin Bach in 2013. “It was insane. She was world famous and then suddenly I found myself sitting on her terrace, just the two of us, drinking champagne,” says Florian, who was recommended for the job by a mutual acquaintance. “I was the only photographer, both at the signing of the register and at the party afterwards. I really got to know her beforehand; to me she wasn’t a celebrity, she was just Tina. She had such a special energy.” A few months after the event, he watched on television as she was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey about her favourite moment of the day. “She said it was when she was waiting for the guests, seeing them arrive from the top of the stairs. I was the only person with her then, and remember taking her picture in that moment.”
On my first roll of film, there were only one or two proper pictures; the rest had the wrong exposure. I learnt by doing, by trial and error.
Looking back, Florian recalls spending his teenage years taking black and white photographs with a second-hand SLR camera and developing them in a makeshift lab in his parents second bathroom. “On my first roll of film, there were only one or two proper pictures; the rest had the wrong exposure. I learnt by doing, by trial and error,” he explains. He went on to study photography at Zurich University of the Arts (“it was quite an artistic education, not so much on the technical side, more on expression and becoming an artist”) and began assisting photographers before eventually starting up on his own.
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These days, he edits his images from a 19th-century studio in Zurich, built by renowned Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin. The industry, he says, is continually evolving. “When I started, there wasn’t much digital photography and now it’s a completely different world: everything happens 10 times faster, classic editorial work is disappearing and commercial shoots are more necessary.” Whatever the circumstances of the assignment, he embraces the spontaneity that comes with photographing people. “I always arrive with an idea but then often something happens to change it. That’s what I love. If you control everything, then it becomes boring.”
Cover image: Sean Penn by Florian Kalotay.
Learn more about Florian at his website here or visit his instagram @floriankalotay_photo
Florian Kalotay
Professional photographer
Cape Capital