One of the first thing you’ll notice when you visit photographer Jeremy Goldberg’s website is that his photos are divided up into three unique and distinct sections – CinemaScope, EightTrack and ShoeBox. In CinemaScope and in EightTrack, you’ll find yourself entranced by the glamorous and modern way he shoots our favorite actors and musicians, but it’s in ShoeBox where you’ll find the hidden gems and beautiful treasures. Goldberg created this series, in his words, “to avoid falling into the typical pigeonholes.” While celebrity, music and fashion photography have a certain look, the photos in his shoebox are more intimate. Goldberg wanted to take photos of his subjects in his own way, or not in the way existing media and photographers had already presented it. He needed to find a category that fit his sensibility. Hence, ShoeBox was born. “To me, all photography is nostalgic. It is, by definition, showing a time that will be gone forever, and a place that will never exist in quite the same way,” he explains. “So I like my own images to have a nostalgic but organic connection to another time or place or person – it’s a way for me to reincarnate people and events. “The hard part is that it has to feel real – it has to connect. Unfortunately, I see photos of a contrived nostalgia which I think is very popular right now. Too much photography today is either technically perfect, or technically sloppy (to show how “raw” it is). Or soft and pretty and devoid of intimacy. “I wanted to escape from that. “The ShoeBox series is a distillation of that feeling. The name comes from people who would keep all their favorite “non-framed” images in a shoebox. It’s not the family portrait over the mantel, it’s all the images that they treasured – that had sentimental value. That almost feel too personal to share, except with a few select friends late at night, possibly with a bottle of wine and a long reminiscing conversation.”
Of course, Goldberg’s photos of famous celebrities should not be overlooked. Inside CinemaScope and EightTrack you’ll find some beautifully lit and stylized shots that are equally enchanting. “I love shooting actresses and musicians is not just because of what they do, but because of who they are,” he says. “They’re not only interesting looking people, but often are more emotionally vulnerable, which is not what people imagine. Most people don’t expose their emotions the way an actor or actress is required.”
“I think the best photography or movies or any kind of storytelling pulls you in and *makes* the story real – even if only for a moment.” Jeremy Goldberg