Your work is really wonderful.
I think many people on this forum, as its landscape based, have misconceptions about fashion. This is understandable, not many people in the general population read the better mags or have an understanding of what the industry is really about at its core, and the photographers who are a part of the artistic side of the industry. Most people in the states think of American Vogue, Cosmo and Alure as fashion mags. They are, but they are very mainstream. Rarely is Grace Codidngton given the room to do what she wants. It happens, but not nearly as much as in the European Vogue titles. (As an aside, I think conflating fashion and celebrity was the worse thing that has ever happened to fashion magazines. It roped in more readers, but man, at what cost? Thanks Ms. Wintour for that culteral fuckery!).
Thanks for the compliment – apart from surprising me, it made my day, which by 11.28pm had done very little else to raise my spirits – so thanks again for renewing my faith in the eleventh hour!
Grace Coddington used to be a model too, until misfortune ruined it for her, though I imagine she’s had a far longer career in editorial work than modelling could have provided. There was a film shot a couple of years ago about the making of the September issue of US Vogue in which she featured quite strongly, and it became crystal clear that she had her own opinions about how the place functioned – a brave lady, but perhaps she knew her value.
I watched the link Fred supplied about Vogue España - but the thing is, Testino didn’t just come out of nowhere as a snapper: he was already very well connected in South American society, and none of that gets in the way of one’s climb! Especially when it isn’t really about money. That can annoy the hell out of many people who need both money and the work, but if you happen to be the golden boy, do you care – should you care?
The point was made by ‘guy with…’ that fashion is about the changing of very young girls into women, steallng their youth. What nonsense! Young girls don’t figure: young girls have no money. The only reason some young girls have a part is because they are young and, consequently, they have a naïve quality that can photograph well, and their skin is pretty much better than that of women of the age to buy the product. If anything, young girls are a damned nuisance in a working environment because they create responsibilities that folks don’t need. But, if you dig beyond the stuff written about the ‘younger girls’ in the business, you must be blind not to realise that the women making the money and getting the top work are not really all that young anymore. Last time I looked, Ms Moss was still actively employed. That kids are idiots isn’t the fault of a magazine editor or photographer: if anything, where the hell are the parents? If you need to find someone to blame, look for the goddam dealers.
As for fashion being objectification – that sounds so very innocent a concept that I can hardly believe it was written by a photographer active today. Objectification of women by themselves, then? You don’t believe that women actually
enjoy clothes, shoes, looking the best that they can? There’s a kind of sense in that view that is divorced from any experience that I have had of females in my entire life. It has the same provenance as has the belief that girls only like dolls because their mothers give them to them as toddlers. If anyone believes that, I suggest they take themselves off to a third-world state and have a look at the really, really poor children at play: maternal instincts are always there, and where mother can’t give the little daughter anything, hardly even food, you won’t find a pretty, pink china doll but you will find a bit of wood with some rags wrapped around it that represents the very same urge. It’s inborn. It’s life.
It’s also bedtime,. So buenas noches, world.
Rob C