By Jimmy Steinfeldt
Los Angeles (The Hollywood Times) 4-26-25
Jimmy Steinfeldt (JS) How often do you clean your lens?
Robert Landau (RL): I’m terrible about that. Unless I see a spot, I never think about it. Actually, it depends. If I’m out shooting for myself, I’m not all that careful. If it’s a paying gig it’s, one of the first things I do.
JS: What was your first camera?
RL: My first real professional camera was a Nikkormat. It got me into the Nikon system. My uncle in New York worked in a camera store his whole life. He suggested I start with that camera.
JS: What photographers influenced you?
RL: Early 20th Century European photographers. Andre Kertesz, Eugene Atget, Brassai. My dad had an art gallery and there were many art books at our house. I’d go through these many picture books and became fascinated with these black and white images. Particularly Kertesz. He was one of the first to make 35mm OK. Instead of shooting on a tripod he could walk around the city and get these amazing shots. They are poetic, historic, they tell stories. He really inspired me to get into photography. I wrote him a fan letter and included one of my photos and told him I got into photography because of him. I told him my favorite picture he did is called Martinique and he sent me a print.
JS: Tell me about your study of photography.
RL: I started out studying sociology for two years at Sonoma State University. Photography was a hobby. I got more serious about photography, so I took a year off and went to Paris and started taking pictures emulating my early heroes. I realized I wanted to do this more seriously and when I came back to California I went to Cal Arts. At that time in the 1970s it really wasn’t a place to learn that much. They said make a project, come back and grade yourself. It was very hands off. I didn’t learn much technique there. It was, however, a good atmosphere.
JS: Tell me about the early days of your professional career.
RL: I’ve had studios, but I really don’t like setting up things and telling people what to do. I like to wander around and take pictures and respond to things. To make a living, however, I’ve done all sorts of photography. One of the best gigs I ever had was working for Peter Greenberg who is a travel journalist. He was starting a new television series called The Royal Tour where he would get Heads of State around the world to lead him on a tour of their country, and film it, at first for the Travel Channel and later for PBS. He asked me if I wanted to join the crew as the still photographer. Peter and I originally met playing softball and he said he was going to Jordan to film the first episode with King Abdullah II, who had just recently come to power, and so I went on that trip. We travelled all over Jordan with the King in his jet and even visited his family home by the Red Sea. I remember he showed us a vintage motorcycle he had with a sidecar, and I got some shots of him driving it around with his family loaded in. I also went to Mexico, New Zealand, and Ecuador. We would travel in the cars and planes of these dignitaries and take pictures throughout. Most of my assignments have been editorial.
JS: Do you have a preference, black and white versus color?
RL: I started out shooting black and white in part because I could develop the film myself. Also, I was emulating the guys from Europe who had taken amazing cityscapes. I thought I could do that same thing in L.A. It didn’t take long to figure out L.A. wasn’t Paris. It’s not a black and white city it’s a color city. Especially with the Rock ‘N’ Roll billboards. So, my first five or six years it was black and white and then all color.
JS: Tell me about your famous billboard photos.
RL: Like many good things that come along it was not planned. In the late 60s my parents got divorced and my dad got a little apartment on Shoreham Dr. just above the Sunset Strip about a block from Tower Records. I went to live with him and I saw men painting the billboards. I had always thought they were photographs but now I could see they were hand painted. It was surreal. A guy the size of an ant is painting John Lennon’s head fourteen feet tall, above the Sunset Strip. I started photographing them and that’s when I switched to color because black and white wouldn’t tell the story.
JS: There’s lots to photograph in L.A. why did you choose billboards? Did you shoot the pictures for yourself or for someone else or for a publication?
RL: I realized if I didn’t take a picture of a billboard it would be gone very soon. I would do slide shows with my photos for my friends who didn’t live on the Sunset Strip so they could see what they were missing. 40 years later I did a slide lecture at the Getty about how L.A. was changing. It included photos of store fronts, and other things and also the billboards. During the Q&A every question was about the billboards. I realized I had documented this period pretty thoroughly. I shot it with Kodachrome and archived the film well and that’s when the idea of the book came about.
JS: Talk a bit about the Kodak film Kodachrome.
RL: I can’t tell you about the chemistry, but it was the best color pictures ever. It turns out too that they have held up great after all these decades since I kept them out of the light. I would drop the film off here in L.A. and Kodak would send it back east to process. A little later on a lab here in L.A. got permission to process Kodachrome and it never looked the same. Also, no other film that was made looked as good as Kodachrome.
JS: I shot Kodachrome for portraits, and it was great. I recall that there were 64 and 25 ASA versions. You needed a lot of light to shoot with Kodachrome. And we all remember the Paul Simon song about that film. What cameras are you using today?
RL: I am loyal to Nikon. My first being the F2 then the F3. I turned to digital pretty late but that’s what I use now. If I’m out and about I will shoot with my phone but for me it’s all about the quality lenses, so I prefer to shoot with my DSLR Nikon camera.
JS: Have you shot movie stills?
RL: It’s difficult to get into the union but I have shot on some indie films. A friend of mine made a movie called Tunnel Vision with some people that would end up on Saturday Night Live. I did stills on the movie.
JS: You had family in the camera/photo business?
RL: My uncle worked at a camera store but my dad owned the Felix Landau Gallery on La Cienega Blvd back when that area was the center of the L.A. art world. Perhaps 40-50 galleries were there. Once a month they’d shut the street down and have an art-walk.
JS: Were you born and raised in L.A.?
RL: I grew up in West Hollywood which wasn’t always its own city. It is close to communities where I could walk to or take a bus. The cover of the new book is a fountain in front of the Hollywood Bowl. So much of Hollywood was Art Deco architecture. What the Art Deco and Billboard books have in common is they tell you about the culture we live in at a certain time. The big difference of course is that each billboard was only up for a short time and many of the Art Deco buildings have lasted. It’s been exactly 100 years since the famous Art Deco exposition in Paris. The L.A. billboards were ephemeral, but the L.A. buildings have stood the test of time.
JS: What was it like living in L.A. during the 1984 Olympics?
RL: The Olympics were held at the Coliseum, an Art Deco building which was built in 1923. It hosted the 1932 summer Olympics. I didn’t go to any of the events during the 1984 Olympics. The city scared everybody about gridlock, so everybody left town. It was the most peaceful, quiet time in L.A. You could drive anywhere. My recollection was there was no traffic
JS: Let’s talk about your new book.
RL: I think books are a great way to show photography. It’s a great way to show a body of work. A print on the wall is great but a book can show what the photographer is thinking. In my new book I show my passion for shooting the cityscape of Los Angeles.
JS: Tell us about architecture, architects and L.A.
RL: This book titled ART DECO LOS ANGELES, like the billboard book, is being published by Angel City Press. The editorial director, Terri Accomazzo, came to my home for a meeting and I gave her two or three ideas for new books that had nothing to do with Art Deco. I showed her some other concepts and we talked more and more. Then she looked up on the walls of my house and said “What are these?” I said they are Art Deco images that I’d see as I was shooting other things in L.A. I hadn’t thought about that subject of photos for a book. She asked if I had any more. I said probably but I’d have to look in my archive. I had to go through lots of negatives and slides. It took hours but I called her back and said I found a lot of stuff.
I wasn’t even aware that while I was out shooting pop culture type things I was also shooting a lot of Art Deco buildings. They just caught my eye. For some reason I was attracted to that. I told her I have more pictures than I thought. She said “Good, that’s the book”
I’m not an expert on architecture but I did write the afterword for the book, and wisely we hired an expert on the subject, Alan Hess, to write an informed foreword which puts the images in their proper context. The book includes pictures from the early 70’s onward.
JS: Do you have a style?
RL: I think if you do anything long enough you can’t avoid having a style. I try to get myself out of the way of the picture. Not try to show how clever I am. Whatever grabs my attention I try to get the best picture I can at that time. Having grown up here in L.A. I am familiar with the quality of the light. Shooting color outdoors looks best in early morning or late afternoon. The best pictures are when the viewer is thinking not about me but about the subject.
JS: When you shoot in a formal setting like when doing a portrait, do you have a routine for preparation and shooting?
RL: I did photos for a magazine called Written By for the Screen Writers Guild. They would send me to photograph writers including Steve Martin. I shot it with a Hasselblad and it turned out great. I didn’t like the nonsense of Hollywood. The talent would arrive with an entourage. That scene didn’t jibe with my personality. When I would do these photo-shoots I like to use a slightly slow shutter speed so you get a kind of an edge to the photo. It was a way to combine artificial lighting with natural light. Also, this was in the days before digital. Now you could see each photo as you shoot it. I did use a polaroid for reference, but it never looked like the finished photo. So there was always a bit of sweating until I got the film back to see if I got that much needed great shot.
JS: What photo or photos are on your bucket list to shoot?
RL: There are a lot of cities I’ve never been to. My father was born in Vienna and I’ve never been there. Hopefully I’ll go back to Europe and shoot some black and white photos.
JS: Have you shot photos with wet and rain-soaked streets?
RL: I’ve never purposely watered down a street, but you can’t beat the glow and the reflection in that type of photo. I took a special picture of the Sunset Tower. I set up my camera on a tripod and at night got the photo with blurred taillights from passing cars.
JS: What’s next for Robert Landau?
RL: I’m wrapped up in launching the new book ART DECO LOS ANGELES. I am launching it Saturday May 3rd at the Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery.
Also, I’m working on a documentary with Producer/Director Peter Spirer called Sign O’The Times based on my book ROCK ‘N’ ROLL BILLBOARDS OF THE SUNSET STRIP. We are interviewing lots of people involved in the creation of those historic billboards.
For more information: https://www.robertlandau.com/
