Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Courtesy Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Robert Rauschenberg Andy Warhol Timothy Greenfield-Sanders Investors Indulge Appetite for Luxury Dealer Holly Solomon’s Papers Headed to Smithsonian Phillips de Pury Makes Its (Small) Mark The Second Sex (at Auction, Anyway) Ryan McGinness Cuts Out the Middleman

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What do you think elevates a photo from commercial to art?

Oh gosh. That’s a hard question. I don’t necessarily think the commercial things I do are art. A portrait I take of Rauschenberg, is that art because I took it here for myself and not art because I took it for Comme des Garçons? I don’t know how to answer that.

I guess if you can see that it’s distinctly a Timothy Greenfield-Sanders portrait, then I guess — I hope — it’s art.

As different as your subjects are, your photos always look like your photos.

I’ve been true to that. It’s all I know how to do.

I think the life of a portrait photographer is quite interesting, really, because you meet amazing people all the time.

You’ve worked with a lot of different kinds of subjects — artists, musicians, porn stars, politicians, soldiers — who of the groups you’ve worked with have been the most challenging?

For me it’s hard to shoot athletes because I’m not interested in sports, they’re not interested in photography, and they don’t care much about the portrait. A politician understands that it’s important, that it’s his image, and an actor sees it as an image that they’re controlling, or that’s gonna make them money.

If I knew more about what athletes do, I could probably get them interested. I’m just not very good with statistics.

How do you prepare for a shoot?

I’m very good at reading a person very quickly, so I don’t have to prep too much. I just kind of do it.

Why are you so good at that?

I think I was born with it. I don’t think you can learn it; you just have it. I have gotten better, but I think I’ve always had it.