A photographer with a cool and deadly eye': Diane Keaton's creativity behind the lens

"Alvy asks if she took the photographs displayed inside. They're wonderful, he says. They have a quality. She dabbles, but would like to take a proper course, replies Annie. Alvy starts waffling about the aesthetic criteria of a new art form (photography has been around for 150 years at this point). Meanwhile, his inner monologue is presented in subtitles: I don't know what I'm saying. Aesthetic criteria? Annie says. You mean, whether it's a good photo or not?"

"And though for Annie photography is an amateur pursuit, Keaton published multiple pictorial books in her lifetime. a scene from annie hall In the 1970s, travelling from coast to coast, Keaton shot a series of classic American hotel interiors (she was an avid fan of architecture and design) for Rolling Stone. These pictures formed the basis of the monograph Reservations, her first book, published by Knopf in 1980. The blurb introduced the actor as a strong, direct photographer with a cool and deadly eye."

"The images, monochrome and square and taken on her beloved Rolleiflex, show typical hotel lobbies of the era; their tension between minimalism and maximalism. The ostentatious banquettes and the baroque wallpaper; the solitary Windsor chair in the corner of an otherwise empty space. Textures abound: the upholstery of a velvet cocktail sofa; the grain of wood-panelled walls; the reflected sheen of a plastic lamp or rubber plants."

Annie Hall includes scenes in which Annie engages with photography, including a balcony exchange and a lobster-sequence kitchen snapshot made with a Nikon F2 Photomic. Diane Keaton pursued photography beyond acting, publishing multiple pictorial books and shooting classic American hotel interiors for Rolling Stone during 1970s coast-to-coast travels. Those photographs became Reservations, her first monograph, published by Knopf in 1980. The images are monochrome, square, taken on a Rolleiflex, and depict hotel lobbies with a tension between minimalism and maximalism. Compositions foreground textures, unexpected cropping, and idiosyncratic framing, drawing comparisons to Diane Arbus.

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