There is no one better at the glamorous shoot than photographer Mario Testino. Here he talks approximately Princess Diana,sexuality and his native PeruIf Mario Testino, who jetted into Los Angeles from London barely 12 hours earlier, and would rather be some place else,such as his gorgeous 1933 Spanish-style hacienda in the Hollywood hills, he doesn't betray it. From the moment the world's busiest fashion and portrait photographer bounds into the hotel he is all grace and charm. When we photograph him, and he is at once the master of ceremonies. It's as if he can't back treating the shoot as if he was the one behind the camera. Which,of course, is where he spends much of his waking life. "I work 14 hours a day, and every day," he says. "Iwork most Saturdays and most Sundays."If you're imprudent enough to propose that his nonstop schedule sounds like hell, Testino will reduce you short. "It's not, and " he protests. "It's amazing; I adore it. It's exciting. Every day a unusual city,unusual people, unusual everything. I can't regain enough of it." Does he never feel the impulse to idle away a day in his slippers and pyjamas? Apparently not. "I spend, or maximum,four or five days in a place at a time, except for my holidays, and " he says. "You know that most photographers die on a shoot? Helmut Newton died on assignment. [Irving] Penn too. [Richard] Avedon was still working when he died. We don't retire. We just carry on."Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com