The academy’s portraitist

Just a few weeks before the Sept. 12 opening of her photo exhibition “Imaging and Imagining: The Film World of Pat York” at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s Grand Lobby and fourth floor galleries, the photojournalist was still snapping portraits of celebrities for the 150-piece show.

“I have gone into fine art,” explains York, who has been married for the last 35 years to actor Michael York. “I had given [celebrity] photography up. But I love working with the people at the academy.

“It’s been so much fun adding to the work I have previously done with the younger generation, and not just the younger generation, but people who I have not photographed before. I did [director] Edward Zwick the other day and actresses Alison Lohman and Zooey Deschanel, who just give you so much hope for the future generation.”

York’s exhibition of color and black-and-white photographs feature -- to name a few -- portraits of her husband, whom she met in the ‘60s on an assignment, Barbra Streisand, George Lucas and Sean Connery. But it’s her candid photographs that really illustrate York’s quirky sensibilities and sense of humor, such as her shot from the late ‘60s of Jane Fonda in her skimpier-than-skimpy “Barbarella” outfit standing over a stove cooking dinner.

“I like spontaneous photographs,” York says. “I love things that are witty and fun.”

York doesn’t know whether being married to an actor makes celebrities feel comfortable around her when she’s photographing them.

“All I know is I have never photographed anyone that was anything but incredibly polite and giving,” York explains. “I think I have a built-in kind of protection thing about me where I know who would not be pleasant, so I never ask for them. I don’t want to be around people whom you can’t have fun with.”

The former Patricia McCallum began her career in the ‘60s as a writer with Conde Nast magazines, first at Vogue and then as a travel editor at Glamour.

A painter, she never seriously took photographs until she did a story for Glamour. “I went on a trip for Glamour as a travel editor and writer with [noted photographer] David Bailey. We were in Japan, which was our first stop, and David wanted to know if I wanted to go to this neat place where you buy Nikons, and I said sure.

“So while I was there I bought a Nikon and about three lenses. David said, ‘Pat, that’s like someone who has never driven a car buying a Ferrari.’ But he gave me lessons in Japan.

“Actually, I was so lucky because I had many mentors -- all of these photographers gave me pointers, so immediately I was having my work published.”

While at Conde Nast, York says, she photographed everything from architecture to celebrities in the movie, fashion and travel industries. “When I got married to Michael, they all seemed to want [movie] celebrities,” she explains. “I began to lose my passion for my work, so I decided to do books, and museums and galleries asked me to do exhibitions. I have had 24 exhibitions since 1997.”

She became interested in shooting abstract black-and-white studies of various parts of cadavers after interviewing a chiropractor-neurologist for a book she’s working on.

“He was a great interview,” York says. “I found out he dissected bodies, and I wanted to do something different. So I went down to his lab.

“I just fell in love with our interior. I think we are the most incredible, most exquisite machines -- I guess with a soul when we are alive. I found it is one of the most profound things I have ever done.”

York realized she needed a bridge between her portraits and the cadaver pictures. She came upon the idea of photographing people nude while at their work as she watched her husband receive an award at Buckingham Palace.

“It seemed kind of a pompous ceremony,” she says. “I thought if all of the people who seemed pompous didn’t have any clothes on, it would make it an equalizer. No one could behave in a pompous way if they were naked.

“I started to ask people from my plumber to CEOs, and, to my astonishment, 85% of the people say yes -- thin, old, young, fat.” Though York still shoots her photographs on film, she is beginning to embrace the digital world. One of her recent fine-arts exhibitions was printed digitally, as is the academy exhibition.

“I think to turn your back on digital is crazy,” York says. “I think when this is over, I am going to submerge myself in learning more about it.”

*

‘Imaging and Imagining’

What: “Imaging and Imagining: The Film World of Pat York”

Where: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Grand Lobby and fourth-floor galleries, 8949 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills

When: Tuesdays-Fridays, 10 a.m.to 5 p.m.; weekends, noon to 6 p.m.

Ends: Dec. 7

Price: Free

Contact: (310) 247-3000 or www.oscars.org