Tracey Bashkoff: Have you ever made photographic portraits?

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Of live people? No–I’m not interested in living people at all. [Laughs]

Interesting pictures that Sugimoto took of diorama’s. He mentioned that:

“I made a curious discovery while looking at the exhibition of animal dioramas: the stuffed animals positioned before painted backdrops looked utterly fake, yet by taking a quick peek with one eye closed, all perspective vanished, and suddenly they looked very real. I had found a way to see the world as a camera does. However fake the subject, once photographed, it’s as good as real. ”

Some podcasts here

The portraits are great as well, especially the way they were created:

“In the sixteenth century Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), Flemish court painter to the British Crown, painted several imposing and regal portraits of Henry VIII. Based on these portraits the highly skilled artisans of Madame Tussauds wax museum re-created an absolutely faithful likeness of the king. Using my own studies of the Renaissance lighting by which the artist might have painted, I remade the royal portrait, substituting photography for painting. If this photograph now appears lifelike to you, perhaps you should reconsider what it means to be alive here and now.”