The Photographs for the Handbook The Artist in Society

Laird Mackintosh is an actor, singer, dancer, artist, photographer... in fact, it sometimes seems as if there isn't much Laird can't do. Peter Hinton first met Laird when he cast him as Rapunzel's Prince in his production of Into the Woods. He was bowled over by the penetrating intimacy of Laird's backstage portraits - taken on the fly between cues, hastily sitting his subjects down and shooting them in natural light, capturing an ephemeral moment when the artist hovers between onstage character and real life.

Peter was haunted by the way Laird's photographs laid their subjects bare, exposing the wig lace and makeup, the traces of the last scene. He loved the way those photographs gave the spectator a glimpse inside another world, another psyche. One of the first things Peter did when he came to the NAC was to share his dream that Laird would do the photography for the season handbook.

He may have seemed an obvious choice to Peter, but Laird was amazed and taken aback to be asked. He had never had a professional photography gig before, but it didn't take him long to sign on. Little did he know that he would be undertaking a whirlwind tour of the country, flying to Paris at the drop of a hat, making emergency trips to photograph a subject in transit at the Brantford railway station, and juggling photo sessions between rehearsals at the Stratford Festival. Somewhere between the airport and South Pacific, a handbook has been born with a very distinctive style that owes a great deal to the imaginative eye and expansive generosity of Laird Mackintosh.

"The photographs for this book were all shot on film using vintage cameras, including a 1956 Rolleiflex - its format is ideally suited for portraiture. I think the resulting images capture something of the character and force of the individual artists."

- LAIRD MACKINTOSH