Camille McGrath and her husband Earl knew everybody, and I mean everybody. They entertained a lot, and this collection of over 600 photos (out of approximately 60,000 Camille had taken over the years) comes mainly from all those lunches and dinners and celebrations. In these photos, you'll see European aristocracy (mainly Italian, as Camille was from Italy), including royalty, artists of all kinds, writers, musicians, actors, politicians, etc, etc. Seriously, they knew everybody. These are personal photographs; Camille was not a professional photographer, and few of these photos have been published, meaning we're getting a look at famous people just hanging out, being themselves. Mick Jagger standing next to Jerry Hall at her baby shower, holding a balloon and a stuffed animal, for instance, or Andy Warhol cuddling his dachshund Archie, or Princess Margaret in fancy dress at a costume party. Some of the photo spreads are the pages of Camille's scrapbooks, with her handwriting labeling the photos. It's such an intimate peek into an amazing life, and would make a perfect coffee table book, something to while away some time with on a lazy afternoon.

#FacetoFace #NetGalley

As a female photographer I am always on the lookout for fellow female photographers who I have not heard of before, and upon starting my very deep dive in the past few years I can confirm there are very many that rarely are spoken of. So when I read the synopsis of Face to Face I knew this was a book I had to pick up.

This collection consists of essays written by Camilla McGrath’s famous friends (among them being Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford) and photographs Camilla took herself over a period of 5 decades which, according to Andrea di Robilant’s kickoff essay, are painstakingly ordered by date and subject. The work itself is a veritable who’s who of artistic and political royalty and I found myself spending an extra amount of time scanning the faces of group photos picking out who I knew and who I didn’t. I was most excited to see photos of famed female photographer (and a personal hero) Annie Leibovitz among the collection and relaxed images of Mick Jagger in ways I’ve seldom seen him photographed.

The photography was fascinating and I found myself resonating with some of the anecdotes Camilla’s friends had to say about her. The discussion of how she brought her camera with her (a Nikon, which is also my camera of choice) everywhere, natural light was essential to her work and that she had a way of capturing the essence of a person aligned so strongly with my own personal philosophy with my own personal work that I felt closer to her as an artist - and I didn’t even know who this woman was before cracking open this book.

While the prose wasn’t amazing, it held character which lends itself to the type of company Camilla and Earl kept and allowed us a look into what spending time with the McGrath’s was really like. The description of the parties was a peek into a different version of the bohemian art scene we’re so used to reading about.

In short, Face to Face is a quick read with fascinating photographs from the period that any photographer should read at one point.

I couldn't help thinking as I was reading this book, that readers of Interview would likely enjoy it. Recognizing a few names, I thought it might be an interesting read, but lost interest pretty quickly as I realized I had really very little interest in the people within the book. I'm not it's audience (not really sure who is.). It's well written, Just not for me. Photos were nice, like looking through someone's family photo album, if one's family features the likes of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Any Warhol etc...