Snowdon’s favorite photograph
Not Marlene Dietrich at The Cafe de Paris by Snowdon
I came upon a photograph of Marlene Dietrich by Snowdon in an old copy of High Life, British Airways’ excellent in-flight magazine. Taken in 1955, long before Adobe Phhotoshop® came to pass, it shows the icon wearing a masculine dinner jacket and top hat. She appears to be smoking a cheroot. A cloud of smoke is frozen to her left.
Snowdon claims it is one of his favourite photographs.
The fumes were created by the Cafe de Paris’ manager who was smoking a large cigar out of the frame. The image is in fact a composite of two frames taken the same evening. Apparently Dietrich preferred her likeness in one of the frames, and the smoke from an alternative shot.
At her insistence Snowdon, (then Anthony Armstrong-Jones), worked through the night making the composite, which was published the following day. He had argued that it would be difficult but Dietrich knew her photography and not only insisted that he ‘get on with the job’, but also told him the technique to demonstrate that she was not about to be flummoxed by technical arguments!
Snowdon has used multiple negatives, on many occasions since. The most striking is perhaps a picture of the caricaturist Gerald Scarff in which he appears in his salon as both a paint soaked artist, and also wearing the full dinner dress of a West End socialite.
You can view Snowdon’s superb Dietrich photograph here.
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