KATIE & JEFF

Today I talked to Katie and Jeff.

I'm walking past the Hollywood Museum when a girl standing next to a camera shouts in my direction: "Could we take a picture of you?" - "Well, yes. What is that for?" I ask. "It's for Travel and Leisure," she answers. I agree and strike a few awkward pauses. It's pretty ironic to find myself pausing for someone while I'm actually looking for a person to photograph. Katie is a freelance photographer and her assistant - who is also her boyfriend - is Jeff. She is a direct, daring girl who doesn't seem afraid of approaching people spontaneously. Katie and Jeff are 27 and 26 years old. They met at the California Institute of the Arts where they were both studying photography. Today, they are making pictures to go with an article that will come out in Travel and Leisure's September issue. I ask them if I could follow them around while they work. They agree and we enter the Hollywood Museum together.

In the entrance hall, a large shiny chandelier hangs from the high ceiling. A faded rumba stresses the obsolete style of the place. I notice a sickly but discreet old cooking oil smell. Through a door ajar, I see Mel's Drive-In, the restaurant next door. At the ticket desk a perfectly groomed lady welcomes the tourists one by one. She wears a fitted pink skirt and a white flowery blouse. Her hair is tied in a tight chignon and her makeup - ruby lips and white skin - looks perfect.

The Hollywood Museum is the authentic Max Factor building where all the major actresses would come to buy their beauty products about a hundred years ago. Katie, Jeff and I enter the make-up rooms. The light blue room is "For Blondes only", the currant and beige "For Brunettes only", and the pink one "For Brownettes only". "This room will shoot better," says Katie while she peeks into the pink room. Jeff helps her set the camera in a good place. This room looks like a giant candy: the walls, carpet and ceiling are pink. An original poster of Judy Garland stands next to a dressing table covered with powders, lipsticks, and makeup accessories. Everything seems left in place by an actress who just left. Jeff measures the light and gives Katie the value. She starts to shoot. They work quietly together, exchanging only a word from time to time. In the blue room, the final scene of "Gentlemen prefer Blondes" plays on a TV. June 1st would have been Marilyn Monroe's 84th birthday. At that date, the museum opened the largest temporary exhibition in the world called "Marilyn Remembered". Private collectors and museums sent all kind of objects related to Marilyn: a fridge, personal photos, dresses, a pill bottle, a fox fur, and many more.

"I'd like to shoot Hannibal Lecter's cell," says Katie. In the stairs to the basement, we hear a creepy music and the light grows dimmer at every step we make. The basement is a mix between a shabby prison and a haunted house. The light is so low that I can hardly see the red brick walls. There are portraits of vampires and headless women here and there. Katie adjusts the height of the tripod and chooses a long time of exposure to shoot the cell. "There's somebody lying there," says Jeff. A body wrapped in a white linen lies in a dark corner right behind us. It makes me slightly jump.

The shoot is over. In less than a minute, Katie and Jeff pack their material. We come back to the bright light on the street. A family of red-face tourists wearing identical t-shirts passes by. "Could I take a picture of you?" Katie asks. "No, I've had my picture taken too much these days. We just came back from a cruise," says the father, and he goes off his way. Katie, Jeff and I split on a friendly note. They have more pictures to make and head towards another group of people. I go the opposite way and let myself slowly disappear into the crowded street.