Bob Willoughby's photostream

This year (2008) I am 80. In the process of going over my prints recently, I realized that I have a lot of photographs that the galleries have never shown...and that I feel should be seen.

Since I have been retired from printing for over three and a half years, the photographs on these pages are the actual remaining prints which are priced now at 1,500 euro each. There are also some original vintage prints available & a few 9.5x12 inch & 16x20 inch prints in the files, so contact me if you have a special request at:

prints@willoughbyphotos.com

The images shown are all my own archival prints from previous exhibitions or books. All are 12x16 inch (30.5 x 40.6 cm). signed & dated. Many of these prints were printed in the 70’s & 80’s, and some might be considered vintage.

Many of my images from the films are well known, but I have tried here to select images not only from films, but famous jazz musicians and dancers that have been rarely seen before. There are other personal images taken on my travels and photographs of people, life, birth and death, from my as yet unpublished book; Saving Beauty, Life’s Beautiful Seasons.

Many of these images are in museum collections: The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. National Portrait Gallery, London. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium. Museum of Modern Art, NYC. Tate Gallery, London. National Media Museum, Bradford, UK. Musee de la Photographie et de l'Image, Nice.. + The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts & Sciences, Beverly Hills.


BIOGRAPHY

Bob Willoughby, born in Los Angeles in 1927, studied cinema at the USC Cinema Department and design with Saul Bass at the Kann Institute of Art. At the same time he apprenticed with many Hollywood photographers as: Wallace Seawell, Paul Hesse, and Glenn Embree during the late 40's. His first magazine assignments were with Harper's Bazaar in the early 50's.

He was soon discovered by the film studios and was the first 'outside' photographer to be hired to get space for them in the magazines, starting in 1954, when Warner Brothers asked him to photograph Judy Garland in the final number of A Star Is Born. This proved successful for them both, (with Willoughby getting his first Life Magazine cover) and it began a 20 year collaboration with the publicity departments of all of the major studios, and provided a new link to the great magazines of the day.

Popular Photography called him "The man who virtually invented the photojournalistic motion picture still". His work was literally never out of print for one week during his 20 year career in films.

In 1972 he moved to the south of Ireland with his wife, four children and his mother-in-law, Quig. They lived 17 years in a castle on Courtmacsherry Bay, where he translated a book of early Irish poetry; Voices From Ancient Ireland. With the children and grandchildren scattered to many places in the world, he and his wife Dorothy now live in the south of France.

Some of the films that he worked on are: The Man With The Golden Arm, Raintree County, Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Green Mansions, Can Can, The Notorious Landlady, The Children's Hour, I Could Go On Singing, Paris When It Sizzles, My Fair Lady, The Great Race, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Rosemary's Baby, The Lion In Winter, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Catch 22, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, Klute, & The Cowboys.
Willoughby devised a number of technical innovations to get the photographs he needed. He financed the first successful sound blimp of a still-camera, which is now common on most movie sets. He was the only photographer working on films at the time, to use radio-controlled cameras, allowing him unprecedented access for certain shots. He had made special brackets that held his still camera on or over the Panavision cameras.

Bob Willoughby was presented with the Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Still Photography for Motion Pictures, in New York in 2004.

His photographs are included in the collections of The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., The National Portrait Gallery, London. The National Media Museum, Bradford, UK. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, Beverly Hills. CA., The Museum of Modern Art, Film Department, NYC, The Tate Gallery Collection, London, & The Musee de la Photographie et de l'Image, Nice, France.