I think the peak of fashion photography was the early 90’s. The images of Gille Bensimon, Patrick Demarchalier, Peter Lindbergh and Arther Elgort among others were beautiful. There were such a range of highly styled to raw images that were always interesting to me as a new photographer. Perhaps my favorite book was Peter Lindbergh’s Ten Beautiful Women because it was so raw.
Those guys were already actively awake in the 70s.
Bensimon was doing stuff at
Elle and then went on pretty much to run the entire art side of the magazine - I think he developed the US version ? - and then, I
think I have this right - he fell out with them big time over copyright ownership of the images. There has often been bitterness over that with big photographers and the magazines that allowed them to fly with the eagles. I think they made up again after some time. Mutual need?
Lindbergh was doing stuff in
Vogue in the 70s, and at the time, I wasn't impressed; I found him a bit heavy and lumbering. Today, I'm a fan. I put it down to watching making-of videos which show the shooting process better than do the magazines. Without them, you wouldn't get the excitement of watching something develop as he moves around trying something different. There's one where he has Lara Stone and a girl whose name I can't remember, working in Paris. The theme is something about them and their dogs, and then getting rather fond of each other in a romantic way. I don't know about the dogs. Theme aside, the video shows him using reflections in windows, working the images on the hoof rather than to some layout. For a snapper, that
is exciting.
I bought his book
A different Vision on Fashion Photography, and if you like him enough, it's a good retrospective; also shows how useful a cigarette used to be in the old days! However, I found the printing of the book (Taschen) terribly gloomy.
I bought his last
Vogue. The making-of, with a collection of ladies of importance (Forces for Change, September 2019) is way more interesting than the actual pictures in the publication.
Elgort was used a lot in British
Vogue back in the day. I liked his work at the start, but then I think it changed - or my tastes did. He made some beautiful early shots with Christy Turlington. Hell, who wouldn't/couldn't?
Demarchelier was one of the founder members of the "French invasion" of New York; if I have to pick a favourite
male French snapper, it is Jeanloup Sieff. He was very big in the 60s and 70s.
Rawness has perhaps always been a German characteristic. Lindbergh did it well with his old factories; Newton too, in a more dissolute manner. (His smaller format version of
Sumo is good if you want an wide-ranging view of his work. It's still big enough to warrant the thick perspex stand!)
I guess the truth of the matter is that it becomes an age thing: the earlier you start to be interested, the more you realise in coming years that little is really new. Certainly, digital changed that, but only in the way that fakery could be achieved, for better or for worse. All today's retouching etc. leaves me cold as a dead fish. It does away with what you like: the rawness, and in its place puts plastic aliens. I am by no means saying digital only does that, not at all: used as a film camera, you can accomplish much the same, and sometimes even better.
Thanks for your response.
;-)
