| August 25, 1996 2:00PM shoot for the New York Times Sunday Magazine at Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's house in upstate New York. Scott Whittle and George Tedeshi assist. Claire Day is the stylist. We setup in the grass near Ismail and Jim's gigantic former Van Rensalaer house with a table, chairs, desserts, champagne and life-size black and white cutouts of E. M. Forster, Henry James and Jean Rhys... our honored guests. Somehow like magic the shot comes together and the sun throws a perfect late afternoon orange light across our silly tableau. Later, when the cars are packed, we stand for a while in the kitchen eating the pastries and drinking from a magnum of Veuve Cliquot. Ismail and Jim tell us about their new Merchant/Ivory production Surviving Picasso.
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