Malibou Lake – Wild Fires – Cinematography

Before and After

✨Water exhibition & the story of the beautiful house that sat on a rock,overlooking the dam at Malibou Lake. ✨

Thank you A Smith Gallery and Elizabeth Avedon for selecting my image, Malibou Lake to be part of the “water” exhibition with @asmithgallery . It has also been selected for inclusion in “The 27”, a limited-edition hardbound art book of the exhibition. So grateful for this opportunity. These images are now historical because the house pictured here no longer exists. The Woolsey fires of 2018 went right thru the Malibou Lake community, (my childhood community) and took about 36 houses with it. I am grateful that my childhood home still stands. Swipe above to see the before and after the fires. It was a terrible loss for many, but the community has come back even stronger.

Interesting fact is that this house used to be owned by the cinematographer, Arthur Edeson. He was one of the Founders of the American Society of Cinematographers and part of the 15 original members of the ASC when it was established in 1919.

Edeson’s cinematographer credits include some of the best remembered films of all time: The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1943), Frankenstein (1931) (Filmed at the lake), The Invisible Man (1933) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Born in New York City on October 24, 1891, Edeson was barely making a living as a portrait photographer in 1910 when he decided to try his hand at the movies.

Edeson never lost his interest in photography and began to shoot portraits of his fellow actors. His photos caught the attention of cinematographer John Van den Broeck, “In those times, flat lighting was the rule of the day,” Edeson wrote. “However, I began to introduce some of the lighting ideas I had learned in my portrait work — a suggestion of modeling here, an artistically placed shadow there — and soon my efforts tended to show a softer, portrait-like quality on the motion picture screen. This was so completely out of line with what was considered ‘good cinematography’ in those days that I had to use my best salesmanship to convince everyone it was good camerawork.”