Gold Rush: 2009-08-16

Nick Knight

NICK KNIGHT is an enigma. So are his photographs. They have a tendency to draw you in automatically, filling your head with romanticised narcissism and are genuinely powerful images- quite a cry from the man who majored in Human Biology. This isn’t an article just to backlog Knight’s career, as interesting and successful as is it; it is to celebrate the innovative mind and creativeness Knight brings to each shoot he produces. Yes, Knight has worked for publications such as Vogue UK and US, Arena Homme, i-D, Dazed & Confused and ‘W’ Magazine and has landed advertising work with Dior, McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent and Calvin Klein – to name a few. Along with countless exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Tate Modern and The Saatchi Gallery, Knight boasts a colourful and impressive biography, and rightly so, since studying a 3 year photography course at Bournemouth & Poole University back in 1979, Knight’s early work provided an insight for photography lover’s overt, avant-garde, street cultured world.

His first book ‘Skinheads’ earned him his first award for Best Book Cover, and opened the door for 25 more awards over the past 24 years, including a 1986 ‘Magazine Publishing’ award for his ‘Back to School’ fashion story in i-D. Knight started his career shooting for The Face and i-D magazine where he tackled taboo subjects including questioning sexuality and equality in race. It was only after the success of “100 Portraits” commissioned by Terry Jones for i-D’s 5th Anniversary issue, that Art Director Marc Ascoli took a chance on Knight.

Although Ascoli had only been in charge of artistic matters at Yohji Yamamoto for two years, when he discovered Knight’s talent, he enrolled him into the fashion photography for Yamamoto’s advertising campaign and catalogue which in turn led to Knight’s contribution for Jil Sander in 1991 which lasted for a successful five seasons. However innovative Knight’s work for Yamamoto and Sander, when he began producing his work for editorial shoots, it became crystal clear that his talent lay in opening up his imagination to produce a wonderland of images that challenged and questioned fashion. Knight is a true innovator of photography, his work does not only lay in that of fashion, but in art, in the street, in nature; anywhere.

He even set up SHOWstudio.com 9 years ago as a platform for others to get involved in all creative projects attracting models, writers, filmmakers and a further mass of creative individuals to share their work. His ability to create images allows us to give him the title of an extraordinary, well, enigma.

David LaChapelle

DAVID LACHAPELLE is a surrealist. He is also not an ordinary photographer. In fact, he is involved heavily in so many creative projects it’s hard to keep up with the fireball. From his editorial, advertising and book portrait work the same concept of his is grasped; he simply likes to use colour and take photographs of celebrities, yet he does this is a way that is not humiliating and pathetic, he uses wit, boldness and the shock factor to make these images extremely beautiful, intense and humorous.

Many A-List celebrities who wanted to pose for LaChapelle include portraits of a rather satisfied Angelina Jolie, a sickly sweet Mariah Carey, a not surprisingly jaw-dropping David Beckham to a very refined Hilary Clinton and a chilled out Missy Eliot. His has an incredibly diverse portfolio of work and his clientele is very diverse; fashion brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, H&M and Diesel, music videos including No Doubt’s ‘It's my life and three with Elton John, TV Channel MTV, Siemens Mobile and magazines including Vogue, GQ, Rolling Stone and i-D Yet the wonderful thing about LaChapelle is that his work is easily recognizable, using the same sharp focus and striking colours throughout.

In the portrait work he creates, they have the aura of a shock factor and create a sense of a daring ability to show a contrasted side to the celebrity. His work for this has been celebrated many times and since his arrival into photography in 1984 he has had exhibitions of his work almost every year, with six in 1999. But what is surprising is the time it took for his work to be celebrated – it was 9 years before he won his first award which prompted his first book to be released a year afterwards.

So it seems LaChapelle wasted no time in wanting to spread his message through different types of media – and it paid off. The larger-than-life images he creates are poignant in his interest with hyper-glamorous situations and wild prop use. He is dependent on his location, instruments used to develop a beautifully surreal landscape. There is a sense of mild eroticism in most of the photographs; some are stronger than others. A sense of tacky trash culture is present in an array of his work, but it is used with a brilliant tongue-in-cheek mentality it flatters the picture rather than destroying it. LaChapelle certainly knows how to cause a photographic stir.

Fashion Photography

Throughout the years, photography has been a completely original way to portray everything from fashion to music, art, war, poverty and life.

A good photographer can take an image and portray their take and their emotions behind it. These photographs go on to audiences who truly connect and understand the photographers’ sometimes crazy, obscene, beautiful or sad world.

Two of these photographers, Nick Knight and David LaChapelle have strong creative control in fashion and their messages; they go beyond the need to sell and create editorial shots to place in glossy magazines – they have embodied an aesthetic of outrageously beautiful photographs in which a single picture they produce can sum up a ‘moment’. Fashion is one of those brilliantly versatile subjects that provoke photographers to play around with it.

Whether it’s the clothes, the model, the subject, the location or even beyond the typical assortment of themes, these fashion photographs are groundbreaking – not in a way that every other fashion photo’s job is to make you ‘desire’ the commodity, or makes you believe that the object in the photo is the one you need, these pictures have become more than that. Forget about fashion photographs making you buy into an item, these have the power to make you want to be completely immersed in the, in their, fashion world.

Here are some of their fantastic pictures, with reviews to follow...