Models pose, actors act… Shooting celebrities isn’t always the journey into the ‘truth’ that I might wish for, but Soviet dissident poet, Joseph Brodsky is the only subject that I felt from the get-go was cynically out to manipulate me. We were in his ground floor studio in Greenwich Village. He chose his spot—the front window that was barred. Ah, prison I thought. He placed a book by his side. Ah, an intellectual, I thought. He raised his hands covering his face. Ah, anguish, I thought. And, so it went. Between takes, he showed himself to be complex, intense, vital (but bored) and an accomplished egoist undoubtedly worthy of his Nobel Prize, but when my camera was focused on him, he became the tortured poet. I was a small tile in his carefully constructed American mosaic. As you can see in this image, we both knew I was not buying into it.