Brian Finke Planet of the Books Interview
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My good friend Ben over at Planet of the Books just sent me a heads up about the interview he just posted with photographer Brian Finke. I first saw Finke’s work on the Goings on About Town section of the New Yorker, a page near the front that features one of the magazine’s only photographs every week. It was a picture of a couple of acrobats stretching and I was so capitvated by it that I emailed Brian to say hey. Hey never wrote me back, but I’m sure that was just some kinda oversight or he hadn’t heard of me yet or something, you know? Anyway, dude recently showed his Flight Attendants at ClampArt and PowerHouse Books just put out a monograph of the work.
BEN: The first question that will no doubt come to everyone’s mind as they look through this beautiful book, Flight Attendants, is “How is this possible?” Gaining access is always a challenge for documentary photographers, how did you gain access here? Was your previous work and reputation an aid or do you believe you could have gained access without that history?
BF: Flight Attendants is a personal project I started in 2004. I began proposing airline related story ideas to magazines. I worked with them to help gain access and get my first introductions to airlines. For the proposals I had to come up with an editorial perspective. An early proposal was to photograph airlines that had hired high end designers to design their uniforms. I photographed a portfolio about Flight Attendant fashion for City Magazine and another portfolio the following year for their travel issue. I also did stories for the New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Newsweek and Cathay Pacific’s in-flight magazine photographing flight attendants working during flights, at home and at training schools.
The magazines and I contacted airlines public relations departments. The airline would either want nothing to do with the stories or would totally be into the press. Once the airlines were on board I would have amazing access, running around airports with my assistant, during flights and out on tarmacs. And flying all around the world.