Markus Klinko & Indrani On Lindsay Lohan, 'Double Exposure'

Indrani: We met at a casting. Markus had just become a photographer a week before, and I was a model doing my own photography on the side. Markus was a classical harpist at the time, but I came into the very first casting he had when he was looking for a hot girl. He was hoping to have a career of hot girls, and I came along and put an end to all of that.

Indrani: Right away from the very beginning. The moment I walked in I looked through his portfolio and started critiquing everything and that's how we fell in love. So work and love blended together.

Markus: It's not that it didn't work out. We were together for almost eight years. It was probably the best time of our lives but now it's probably even better because our friendship has not replaced the love that's great love. Indrani's like my family, and I think that we have a very good understanding of how we work together. A lot of the conflicts we have - they're really a great part of the creative process because if Indrani and I had the same point of views to begin with and if we had all the same ideas and agreed, it would be redundant to be a duo. We could just work on our own. Our photography is defined by the male and female view point and the collaboration with our stylist and our subjects and our clients. It is definitely not a single-minded perspective.

Indrani: I think the worst fights we have tend to be over nothing. They tend to be about other things and we're not communicating well, so we let other small things blow up into something much bigger. But we've learned through our long relationship together that the more we communicate and the more we actually deal with things right away, the less the tension lasts. Markus: I would actually define it a little bit different. I wouldn't call them fights because fights are mean-spirited things. These are more creative arguments in general or production arguments. Maybe she wants to do it this way or another way. Indrani: We have a lot of things we have to do constantly, and we really believe now that communicating about it even in a heated way is much better than keeping things inside and
letting it start to tear us apart. We find that it's a very therapeutic thing for us to discuss these things and we're both passionate, so we discuss them loudly. Markus: As people see us on the show, these creative arguments, we're obviously on adrenaline because we're in the middle of a creative process. We're capturing Lady Gaga or Naomi Campbell and we want to get the best shot. So most of us are very high strung because we're there on the set, and as we clash we don't actually feel like we're fighting. This is our art, this is what we love.

Markus: Well this is probably my fault. I think it comes from the somewhat ignorant idea which I shared in the early years that a photographer is one person. You have one camera, you have one lens, you have one photographer. In the very beginning I considered Indrani more of an art director and a creative partner but that's wrong and it's interesting that we're the front-runner of a trend which now you have quite a few very well known duos in celebrity fashion and
photography, and I think we were probably the first ones. Our roles are completely 50/50, we're equal partners. I think it was a sign of the times. Indrani: I think it was my responsibility, too because I second-guessed myself every moment and I had great ideas. But I didn't have the confidence to really put them forward in a way people would listen to them. So I would go through Markus with everything.

Indrani: I think our favorite image changes every day. It depends on what we're looking at. It's such a tough question. I'm in the place right now where we're going to have an exhibition tomorrow with all of our images. Honestly, I can't decide what to put where because I love
them all, it's a tough decision.

Indrani: Lady Gaga. Everyone definitely has something special but Lady Gaga really is the person who has been the most open to our ideas
and most open to going far beyond anything she's every done before, and we love that. We love to take someone and create a whole world with them that we feel that they can be amazing in and she worked so well with all of our ideas. We shot her in an underground temple in London that we tracked down and we turned her into a 90s version Hello Kitty goddess, and she loved it. It was definitely an occasion where we got to go all the way with our ideas and were pushed even further by the artist which was really fun.

Markus: I don't think so. We've had difficult subjects that don't like to be photographed and therefore it was definitely a little bit of a very hard day. Chris Rock comes to mind as somebody who's not so easy because he doesn't like the still picture. He's very uncomfortable in front of a camera that's not moving because he's funny and he talks and cracks jokes, but when just freezing up he's not the same. That was probably the hardest one I can think of. He's not a bad guy, I like him and he's a fantastic comedian but as a photographic subject I think my stomach hurt me a lot after that
session.

Indrani: There is often tension, challenges and things. Normally we get along wonderfully with all of the talent that we work with and we did with Eve as well and she was fantastic to work with. Sometimes misunderstandings happen and we figure them out and find ways that everyone can be happy. She ended the shoot very happy.

Indrani: Lindsay has an incredible energy. She's someone who's extremely charismatic and very intelligent. I think that what we see in the public perception of Lindsay is very different from the Lindsay that we got to know. She's very into the art, she's very dedicated to film making. She spends all her time studying film and I find that really admirable at her age, especially with the kind of reputation she has. We really came to find that she's such a hard working person. We worked with her the whole night until 8 in the morning. She never once complained. One time she tripped, there was something slippery on the set, and she got right back up and she was such a pro and I think
that that side of her doesn't get much attention right now for whatever reason and I think that it should because she has a huge potential. I really like her, personally. I think she's very
professional.

Indrani: I kept in touch with her. We've all been very busy in our own crazy lives and there's a lot of things she has going on right now. I really would love to be a part of them. I think she's creating her own way forward, and she's very focused on her art and I'm very happy to encourage that.

Markus: The season is filmed. It's totally done. We have really great people from Gaga to Naomi to Sports Illustrated swimsuit models. The premiere is exciting but at the same time it's also kind of terrifying and I think that's why the adrenaline has been so high. Television is almost the last frontier for us, and it's a very new era and I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by how intense it all is.