Shooting for the Stars
Photographer Skip Bolen
Above: Jamie Foxx stars in “Project Power”, about a black market pill that has hit the streets of New Orleans, giving its users unpredictable superpowers. Right: Still photographer Skip Bolen, who spends his days and nights on film sets in and around New Orleans. 20
HE’S WORKED IN NEW ORLEANS, New York, and L.A., but as a boy growing up in Lafayette, Louisiana, the world of movie-making wasn’t something he was at all familiar with. But, like everything else in his life, Skip Bolen’s journey into photographing famous film stars was something he ambled into, quite by happenstance. I first met Skip years ago on the set of the Russell Crowe movie, “Unhinged”, which was shooting that day in Chateau Estates, filming a particularly hairy car crash, replete with an airborne vehicle, a launch ramp and a crane. I was doing a piece about the film for the New Orleans Advocate and Skip had been hired by the motion picture studio to get some spectacular promotional publicity stills. That was three years ago, and Bolen has now been back in New Orleans for the last fifteen years, on the set
I n side N ew Orl ean s
of some 93 films, but this wasn’t ever how he originally envisioned his career going. “Believe it or not, I wanted to be a dancer,” remembered Bolen. “But, I couldn’t translate that into making a living and paying the rent. I studied applied art in college, figuring I’d do fine art on the side. So, the logical step out of college was to take a job at an ad agency in Lafayette.” Eventually realizing he needed to move to a bigger city, Bolen packed his bags and headed for New Orleans, where he took a job at a small design studio. But he didn’t enjoy working on products he didn’t believe in, so in time moved to Wavelength Magazine, a precursor to OffBeat Magazine, which became the definitive guide to music in Louisiana and New Orleans. At Wavelength, he became the art director. It satisfied his love of music as a guitarist and songwriter, who was at the time in a punk band. Meanwhile, he began to photograph musicians. His first gig? The Ramones, appearing at a West Bank venue with Iggy Pop. And he was showing his films of the musicians at a studio he rented on Poydras Street where the first floor became a venue for bands, and the second floor was an art studio. The total tab for the two floors he rented was $100. It was 1979 in New Orleans, and rents were still relatively cheap. But Bolen’s desire to work in a very large city lured him to New York where rents were anything but. Hopping in his Peugeot, he headed for the Big Apple with relatively little money and no job. He was decidedly betting on the come. Sleeping on a friend’s couch, he began sending out resumés and interviewing everywhere from MTV to Condé Nast which published everything from Vogue and The New Yorker to GQ and Vanity Fair. But what job openings they had weren’t a good fit
photos: SKIP BOLEN
by Leslie Carde
