If you love Scorcese's Taxi Driver then you might find Taschen's new opus of unseen photography is talking to you.
As brilliant jobs go, Steve Shapiro took the biscuit. In the seventies, he was the photographer on the set of some of cinema’s greatest movies including Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Risky Business and Midnight Cowboy.
Schapiro got the gig on Taxi Driver because not only was he an established photographer who could place his shots in top magazine titles like Rolling Stone but he knew De Niro. The two had worked together on The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and The Godfather Part 2 and the actor felt comfortable with having him on the set.
The photographer reveals that on set was a tense affair - even when the cameras weren’t rolling the actors maintained their intensity. For Schapiro there is one image that sums up the film perfectly: “It would have to be Travis with the bloody finger to his head, as if he were shooting himself,” he says. “Sometimes you cannot express in words why an iconic image is an iconic image. It just emotionally gets to you. Let’s leave it at that.”
The book launch for Steve Schapiro, Taxi Driver will take place between 6pm and 7pm on Monday 8th November at the TASCHEN store London (TASCHEN Store, 12 Duke of York Square, London, SW3 4LY) featuring guest appearances from Schapiro himself and TASCHEN Editor Paul Duncan. Guests will enjoy drinks as well as a short welcome and Q&A session with Steve Schapiro.
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