Douglas Kirkland

Douglas Kirkland was born in Toronto Canada.

He joined Look Magazine in his early twenties, and later Life Magazine during the golden age of 60’s/70’s photojournalism. Among his assignments were essays on Greece, Lebanon and Japan as well as fashion and celebrity work, photographing Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlene Dietrich among others. Through the years, Douglas Kirkland has worked on the sets of over one hundred motion pictures. Among them, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, “2001 A Space Odyssey”, “Out of Africa”, “Titanic”  “Moulin Rouge” and “Australia” Baz Luhrmann’s epic starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Some of his books are “Light Years”, “Icons”, “Legends”, “Body Stories”, “An Evening With Marilyn”, the best selling “James Cameron’s Titanic”, “Freeze Frame”, a decade by decade look behind the scenes from 50 years photographing the entertainment industry published in October 2007 and his latest volume  “Coco Chanel, Three Weeks” published in the Fall of 2008. He was one of the producers and photographers of “A Day In the Life of Canada”.

Douglas Kirkland’s fine arts photography has been exhibited all over the world. His exhibition of Freeze Frame is now in the permanent collection of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills from January. His work is also in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra Australia, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Eastman House in Rochester and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.

He is also a sought after lecturer . In September of 2008, Vanity Fair Italy organized a retrospective of his work at the prestigious Museum of the Triennale in Milan. He is a member of the prestigious Hewlett Packard’s Photo Influencers and Canon’s Explorers of Light and as well as an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers. Some of the awards he has received include a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the American S.O.C., Photographer of the Year from the PMA, a Lucie Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Entertainment Photography from the IPA in 2003, The Golden Eye of Russia in April 2006 and a Life Time Achievement Award from CAPIC in his native Toronto Canada in May 2006. In October 2007, Douglas received an Honorary Master of Fine Arts Degree from Brooks Institute for his deep commitment and dedication to his profession. Among his current book projects are a Black & White volume “When We Were Young”, and “Face to Face” a book of portraits.

Some additional subjects of Kirkland’s have been:

• Coco Chanel
• Pierre Cardin
• Katherine Hepburn
• Charlie Chaplin
• Judy Garland
• Orson Welles
• John Wayne
• Faye Dunaway
• Robert Redford
• Sophia Loren
• Barbara Streisand
• Gong Li
• Pierce Brosnan
• Gene Hackman
• Angelina Jolie
• Ewan Mc Gregor
• Renee Zellwiger

                      

Kirkland’s assignments have taken him to all continents in the world (with the exception of Antarctica) where he worked on subjects as varied as: Astronomy in Chile, to The Trans Siberian Railroad, and fashion in Bali.

When not traveling the globe on assignment, his home and studio is in the Hollywood Hills where he lives with his wife and business partner Françoise.