t’s just after 9pm in the UK when
I get put through to Jeff Bridges,
who is at his offices in Los Angeles.
The familiar drawl of ‘The Dude’ (his
character from The Big Lebowski)
says, “Hey Steve,” and we start
a conversation about how this
Academy Award-winning actor has a deep
love for still images, as well as moving images.
Bridges’ fascination for photography dates
back to his teenage years. Like many who go
on to become professional photographers,he started playing with his father’s camera.
Not long after that, he saw a Widelux camera in
action when a photographer came to his high
school, armed with one of these swing-lens
panoramic cameras, to shoot the class picture.
The Widelux format had gone to the back of
Bridges’ mind until his wedding day in 1977,
when the photographer used a Widelux to
shoot the happy event. After seeing the
wedding pictures, Bridges admits he was
“hooked”; since the mid-1980s he has shot
on-set panorama-format images forI
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com APRIL 2020 DIGITAL CAMERA^135
Jeff^BridgesAbove: Jeff Bridges,
Tr u e G r i t, 2010.