David Bailey
David Bailey is a British photographer known for his advertising, celebrity, and fashion photographs.
In 1960, David Bailey began photographing for British Vogue, and his fashion work and celebrity portraiture, known for stark backgrounds and dramatic lighting effects, transformed British fashion and celebrity photography. His work reflects the 1960s British cultural trend of breaking down antiquated and rigid class barriers by injecting a 'punk' look into both clothing and artistic products.
Some of Bailey's photographs:
"Jean Shrimpton Photographed by David Bailey, Vogue, 1962"
Jean Shrimpton by David Bailey 1965
Catherine Deneuve photographed by David Bailey
MIA FARROW / DAVID BAILEY.
Johnny Depp by David Bailey 1995
Paul & John by David Bailey.
Donyale Luna, 1966, once called “the reincarnation of Nefertiti”, the first black woman to appear on the cover of Vogue, photo by David Bailey
Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton was born on January 14, 1904, in the Hampstead section of London, England. As a child, he adored the picture postcards of society ladies that came with the Sunday newspaper, and he had his two younger sisters pose for photos after receiving his first camera at age 11.
Beaton enrolled at the University of Cambridge's St. John's College in 1922, but he harbored little interest in academics, devoting much of his energy to photography and theater design. After leaving the school in 1925 without a degree, he briefly worked for his father, a timber merchant.
Seeking to pursue his interest in photography, Beaton sent photos to editors and fell in with the Bright Young Things, London's bohemian crowd. He was eventually hired as a staff photographer for Vanity Fair and Vogue, where he developed a unique style of posing sitters with unusual backgrounds. Beaton published his first collection of works in 1930 with The Book of Beauty, and his fame grew to the point where he was tapped to photograph the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1937 and Queen Elizabeth in 1939.
Beaton recorded the fighting in England, Africa and the Middle East for the British Ministry of Information during World War II, his famous photo of a hospitalized 3-year-old air-raid victim named Eileen Dunne gracing the cover of Life magazine. He resumed shooting portraits of the rich and famous after the war ended, but also spent more time nurturing his passion for costume and set design. Proving highly adept in this field, Beaton won Tony Awards for his costume work for My Fair Lady (1957) and Coco (1970), and nabbed Oscars for Gigi (1958) and the big screen adaptation of My Fair Lady (1964).
Beginning in the 1960s, Beaton released a series of diaries that documented his relationships with royalty and celebrities over previous decades. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1972.
In 1974, Beaton suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. Although he learned to paint and operate his photography equipment with his left hand, he grew concerned about his future, and arranged for Sotheby's London to sell his life's work later in the decade.
Four days after turning 76, Beaton died of a heart attack on January 18, 1980, at his manor in Broadchalke, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
Some of Beaton's photographs:
Audrey Hepburn photographed by Cecil Beaton (in New York, April, 1964) for a fashion editorial for American Vogue, edition of June 1964.
Audrey Hepburn photographed by Cecil Beaton, 1964.
Julie Andrews photographed by Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton ‘Maria Callas’ 1957
MARILYN MONROE BY CECIL BEATON
Greta Garbo with pug by Cecil Beaton, 1960 © Cecil Beaton Studio Archive, Sotheby's London
Katherine Hepburn and peacock. Photo: Cecil Beaton
Audrey Hepburn photographed by Cecil Beaton for Vogue, 1964. Hats by Hubert de Givenchy.
Richard Avedon
American photographer Richard Avedon was best known for his work in the fashion world and for his minimalist portraits. He worked first as a photographer for the Merchant Marines, taking identification photos. He then moved to fashion, shooting for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, demanding that his models convey emotion and movement, a departure from the norm of motionless fashion photography.
Richard Avedon was born on May 15, 1923 in New York City. His mother, Anna Avedon, came from a family of dress manufacturers, and his father, Jacob Israel Avedon, owned a clothing store called Avedon's Fifth Avenue. Inspired by his parents' clothing businesses, as a boy Avedon took a great interest in fashion, especially enjoying photographing the clothes in his father's store. At the age of 12, he joined the YMHA (Young Men's Hebrew Association) Camera Club.
Avedon later described one childhood moment in particular as helping to kindle his interest in fashion photography: “One evening my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue looking at the store windows,” he remembered. “In front of the Plaza Hotel, I saw a bald man with a camera posing a very beautiful woman against a tree. He lifted his head, adjusted her dress a little bit and took some photographs. Later, I saw the picture in Harper's Bazaar. I didn't understand why he'd taken her against that tree until I got to Paris a few years later: the tree in front of the Plaza had that same peeling bark you see all over the Champs-Elysees.”
Avedon attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City, where one of his classmates and closest friends was the great writer James Baldwin. In addition to his continued interest in fashion and photography, in high school Avedon also developed an affinity for poetry. He and Baldwin served as co-editors of the school's prestigious literary magazine, The Magpie, and during his senior year, in 1941, Avedon was named “Poet Laureate of New York City High Schools.” After high school, Avedon enrolled at Columbia University to study philosophy and poetry. However, he dropped out after only one year to serve in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II. As a Photographer's Mate Second Class, his main duty was taking identification portraits of sailors. Avedon served in the Merchant Marine for two years, from 1942 to 1944.
Upon leaving the Merchant Marine in 1944, Avedon attended the New School for Social Research in New York City to study photography under Alexey Brodovitch, the acclaimed art director of Harper's Bazaar. Avedon and Brodovitch formed a close bond, and within one year Avedon was hired as a staff photographer for the magazine. After several years photographing daily life in New York City, Avedon was assigned to cover the spring and fall fashion collections in Paris. While legendary editor Carmel Snow covered the runway shows, Avedon's task was to stage photographs of models wearing the new fashions out in the city itself. Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s he created elegant black-and-white photographs showcasing the latest fashions in real-life settings such as Paris's picturesque cafes, cabarets and streetcars.
Already established as one of the most talented young fashion photographers in the business, in 1955 Avedon made fashion and photography history when he staged a photo shoot at a circus. The iconic photograph of that shoot, “Dovima with Elephants,” features the most famous model of the time in a black Dior evening gown with a long white silk sash. She is posed between two elephants, her back serenely arched as she holds on to the trunk of one elephant while reaching out fondly toward the other. The image remains one of the most strikingly original and iconic fashion photographs of all time. “He asked me to do extraordinary things,” Dovima said of Avedon. “But I always knew I was going to be part of a great picture.”
Avedon served as a staff photographer for Harper's Bazaar for 20 years, from 1945 to 1965. In addition to his fashion photography, he was also well known for his portraiture. His black-and-white portraits were remarkable for capturing the essential humanity and vulnerability lurking in such larger-than-life figures as President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. During the 1960s, Avedon also expanded into more explicitly political photography. He did portraits of civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Julian Bond, as well as segregationists such as Alabama Governor George Wallace, and ordinary people involved in demonstrations. In 1969, he shot a series of Vietnam War portraits that included the Chicago Seven, American soldiers and Vietnamese napalm victims.
Avedon left Harper's Bazaar in 1965, and from 1966 to 1990 he worked as a photographer for Vogue, its chief rival among American fashion magazines. He continued to push the boundaries of fashion photography with surreal, provocative and often controversial pictures in which nudity, violence and death featured prominently. He also continued to take illuminating portraits of leading cultural and political figures, ranging from Stephen Sondheim and Toni Morrison to Hillary Clinton. In addition to his work for Vogue, Avedon was also a driving force behind photography's emergence as a legitimate art form during the 1960s, '70s and '80s. In 1959 he published a book of photographs, Observations, featuring commentary by Truman Capote, and in 1964 he published Nothing Personal, another collection of photographs, with an essay by his old friend James Baldwin.
In 1974 Avedon's photographs of his terminally ill father were featured at the Museum of Modern Art, and the next year a selection of his portraits was displayed at the Marlborough Gallery. In 1977, a retrospective collection of his photographs, “Richard Avedon: Photographs 1947-1977,” was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before beginning an international tour of many of the world's most famous museums. As one of the first self-consciously artistic commercial photographers, Avedon played a large role in defining the artistic purpose and possibilities of the genre. “The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion,” he once said. “There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”
Richard Avedon married a model named Dorcas Nowell in 1944, and they remained married for six years before parting ways in 1950. In 1951, he married a woman named Evelyn Franklin; they had one son, John, before they also divorced.
In 1992, Avedon became the first staff photographer in the history of The New Yorker. “I've photographed just about everyone in the world,” he said at the time. “But what I hope to do is photograph people of accomplishment, not celebrity, and help define the difference once again.” His last project for The New Yorker, which remained unfinished, was a portfolio entitled “Democracy” that included portraits of political leaders such as Karl Rove and John Kerry as well as ordinary citizens engaged in political and social activism.
Richard Avedon passed away on October 1, 2004, while on assignment for The New Yorker in San Antonio, Texas. He was 81 years old.
One of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, Richard Avedon expanded the genre of photography with his surreal and provocative fashion photography as well as portraits that bared the souls of some of the most important and opaque figures in the world. Avedon was such a predominant cultural force that he inspired the classic 1957 film Funny Face, in which Fred Astaire's character is based on Avedon's life. While much has been and continues to be written about Avedon, he always believed that the story of his life was best told through his photographs. Avedon said, “Sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me. My concern is… the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own.”
Some of Avedon's photographs:
Richard Avedon - A fashion and celebrity photographer for the most part, Avedon's work is always striking. Love this image of Dovima wearing an early Yves Saint Laurent evening dress for Dior from 1955. Avedon's action shots are always amazing especially his superb ads for Versace during the Supermodel decade
“My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.” Photographer Richard Avedon
Nastassja Kinski, and the Serpent - June 1981 - Los Angeles, California - Vogue US - Photo by Richard Avedon
Cher for Vogue, June 1974 by Richard Avedon
Stephanie Seymour Marcus Schenkenberg by Richard Avedon for Gianni Versace Vogue Italy, July, 1993
Guy Bourdin
A notorious fashion photographer from France, Guy Bourdin lived was born on 2nd December 1928. He was born in Paris and the following year his mother abandoned him. Désiré Bourdin then adopted him and raised him up. While serving in the military in Dakar for a year from 1948, he was given a training of photography in the Air Force of France. He went back to Paris in 1950 where he encountered with Man Ray and became his trainee.
The first exhibition of Guy Bourdin’s paintings and drawing was held in Rue de la Bourgogne at Galerie. In 1953, he agreed to do his first photography exhibition under the pen name Edwin Hallan. In 1955, his first fashion photos were featured in Paris Vogue in February and he continued working for the magazine till 1987. Vogue’s editor introduced Charles Jourdan to Bourdin and then onwards he did photography for Jourdan’s shoe design campaigns from 1967 until 1981. After four years, he refused to accept the award Grand Prix National de la Photographie by the Ministry of Culture, France. Despite this, his name was preserved on the winners list.
In the second half of the 1900s, Bourdin was among the most recognized fashion and commercial photographers. His style of photography exceeded the boundaries of traditional advertising – it was daring and had narrative supremacy. He worked for Harper’s Bazaar as well and shot campaigns for Issey Miyake, Gianni Versace, Pentax, Chanel, Bloomingdale’s, Loewe and Emanuel Ungaro.
Bourdin’s photography was sensational, exotic, sinister, shocking, provocative, sensual, surrealistic and simply out of the box. His influences included Edward Weston, Luis Buñuel, Balthus, Magritte and Man Ray. Guy Bourdin has been a great inspiration for young photographers working in the fashion industry.
As far as his personal life is concerned, he wasn’t known for good reasons. There were loopholes in his life and many suspicions about his wife’s suicide and his treatment of his models. Apart from this, his photography was acknowledged worldwide.
Bourdin was not the kind of person who would cherish his work, in fact he wanted that after his death all his work should be destroyed, although that did not happen. When he was alive, he often refused exhibitions but his work was still displayed in several exhibitions before and after his death. Moreover, the publishing of books was not his cup of tea. He was not natural at promoting his work.
In 1991, a BBC documentary Dreamgirls: The photographs of Guy Bourdin was programmed on the channel. The first book on his work, titled Exhibit A, was published a decade after his death. More books were also released in the 21st century, such as A Message For you by Steidl Dangin, 2006; Guy Bourdin by HNA Books, 2003; Guy Bourdin: In Between by Steidl, 2010; GuyBourdin: Polaroids Editions by Xavier Barral, 2010; and etc. In 2003, Madonna‘s Hollywood was influenced by Bourdin’s photography. Unfortunately, the inspiration was to such a great extent that his son filed a lawsuit against the singer for copyright violation.
Modern photographers, like Jean Baptiste Mondino, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, David LaChapelle and Nick Knight have all agreed that they admire Bourdin’s work.
The latest exhibitions of Bourdin’s work have been held at the French Consulate in New York City, 2010; Museu de Arte Contemporânea in Brazil, 2011; and Deichtorhallen in Germany, 2013. Apart from this, many shows have been conducted in order to display his work. He died on 29th March 1991.
Some of Bourdin's photographs:
Optical illusion … a shot for the May 1970 issue of French Vogue. Photograph: Guy Bourdin Estate/Louise Alexander Gallery
Guy Bourdin image for French Vogue (1967)
Guy Bourdin, 1983
Rankin
Synonymous with compelling portraiture, Rankin’s lens captures, creates and unveils icons.
Rankin made his name in publishing, founding the seminal monthly magazine Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack in 1992. It provided a platform for innovation for emerging stylists, designers, photographers and writers. The magazine went on to forge a distinctive mark in the arts and publishing spheres, and developed a cult status forming and moulding trends, and bringing some of the brightest lights in fashion to the foreground.
Rankin has created landmark editorial and advertising campaigns. His body of work features some of the most celebrated publications, biggest brands and pioneering charities, including Nike, Swatch, Dove, Pantene, Diageo, Women’s Aid, and Breakthrough Breast Cancer. He has shot covers for Elle, German Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone and Wonderland. His work has always endeavoured to question social norms and ideas of beauty and, in late 2000, Rankin published the heteroclite quarterly Rank, an experimental anti-fashion magazine celebrating the unconventional.
In 2001, Jefferson and Rankin launched AnOther Magazine. With a focus on fashion, originality, and distinction. In response to the expanding menswear market, in 2005 AnOther Man was introduced, combining intelligent editorial with groundbreaking design and style. More recently, the Dazed Group has established itself as an online authority, via AnOthermag.com, Dazeddigital.com and Dazedtv.com. Rankin celebrated Dazed & Confused’s 20th anniversary, shooting 20 front covers of Dazed favourites and 20 inside covers of the next generation of talent, for the December 2011 issue.
Tapping into the consciousness of the 90s and 00s with his intimate approach and playful sense of humour, Rankin became known for his portraiture of bands, artists, supermodels and politicians. Having photographed everyone from the Queen of England to the Queen of Pop, Rankin is often seen as a celebrity photographer. However, his plethora of campaigns and projects featuring ‘real women’ marked him out as a genuinely passionate portrait photographer, no matter who the subject. Always pursuing personal projects which push his limits, high impact charity projects, and groundbreaking commercial campaigns, Rankin has stood out for his creative fearlessness. His first major worldwide and award-winning campaign – Dove’s ‘Real Women’ – epitomised his approach: to reveal the honesty of the connection and collaborative process between photographer and subject. Personal or commercial, Rankin’s images have become part of contemporary iconography, evidence of his frankness and passion for all aspects of modern culture, and its representation in the photographed image.
Rankin has published over 30 books, is regularly exhibited in galleries around the world, as well as his own London gallery. His museum-scale exhibition ‘Show Off’ opened at NRW Dusseldorf in September 2012, pulling in over 30,000 visitors in 3 months.
In the last few years, he has frequently turned his hand to studies of photography through TV presenting. Working with the BBC, he has featured in a number of seminal documentaries – ‘The Seven Photographs that Changed Fashion’, ‘South Africa in Pictures’, ‘Shooting the Stars’, ‘The Life Magazine Photographers’ and most recently, an in-depth documentary into the modern approach to death in, ‘Alive: In the Face of Death’.
His affiliation with charities has seen Rankin travel the world, creating powerful campaigns both as a photographer and a director. With Oxfam, he visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya, and in 2011 hosted an Oxglam exhibition, featuring work from some of the world’s most talented emerging young photographers, and raising money for the charity. 2013 sees a planned trip to Jordan and Lebanon with Oxfam.
In 2009, Rankin undertook the biggest project of his career – Rankin Live, a mammoth, interactive spectacle and exhibition. Always interested in the democratisation of the image, and also a keen advocate of the amazing digital advances of the photographic industry, Rankin Live was the culmination of the accessibility and speed of modern photography. Rankin proved that everyone can look like a magazine cover star as, for 7 straight weeks, he photographed people off the street, one every 15 minutes – retouching, printing and hanging the image within half an hour of the shutter being fired. Rankin photographed over 1600 Londoners, before then taking Rankin Live on tour in Mexico and New York.
In 2011, Rankin Film Productions was born. Rankin developed a taste for film
directing music videos, commercials, and short films with co-director Chris Cottam between 2002 and 2009, including their debut feature film, The Lives of Saints. Written by Toni Grisoni (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), it won the grand jury prize at the Salento International Film Festival. Since 2009, Rankin has continued to direct independently on both commercial and personal projects. Taking on the new role of Executive Producer, Rankin recently founded Collabor8te, in association with The Bureau and Dazed TV. Collabor8te calls on scriptwriters and directors to submit their ideas for narrative film, promising to turn a selection of these dreams into a reality, producing them, featuring them on Dazed TV, and running them on the international film festival circuit.
In November 2011, Rankin returned to magazine publishing with a fresh offering – The Hunger. A biannual fashion, culture and lifestyle magazine, The Hunger and its associated Hunger TV website – a video-based digital platform featuring in-depth interviews, fashion films, blogs, updates, and previews – marked Rankin’s return to the fashion world with an understanding that the future is not only printed but digital too.
Rankin lives in London with his wife, Tuuli, and son, Lyle.
Some of Rankin's photographs:
Alex Box + Rankin
Anna Friel Editorial Beauty Rankin Portraits Book
Hannah Marshall by Rankin
Some videos of Rankin's work:
Mario Testino
Mario Testino was born on October 30, 1954, in a well-to-do family in Lima, Peru. His father, a businessman, was the son of Italian immigrants. His mother was of Spanish and Irish decent. He was one of six children born to the couple.
Mario went to a Catholic school, Santa Maria Marianistas, when he was young. Even in his school days, he had an affinity to fashion. He had his school uniform altered by his family tailor because he wanted to look different. His looks were not always accepted by his classmates and often he had to take a taxi ride to avoid being shouted at for his attire.
Testino went to several universities after graduating high school. He was a student at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, the Universidad del Pacifico, and the University of San Diego. Later he moved to London to study photography.
In London, Testino initially stayed in a friend’s apartment, but later on moved to an abandoned wing of a hospital. This was his home for the next seven years. He worked as a waiter to meet his expenses. During those days he had his hair dyed pink which may have helped him get noticed as a photographer.
Testino got his first break when he was asked to do the cover and fashion spread for Over 21. In 1986, he moved to New York and made a shift from fashion photography, but returned to it in 1995 when he worked for a Gucci campaign.
The Gucci campaign with Carine Roitfeld was Testino’s first big success in fashion. He and Roitfeld are often credited with bringing significant attention to Gucci as a big name in fashion. Testino met with further success as pop star Madonna requested him to work on her Versace ads. The photos were featured on the cover of the album Something to Remember and also in high profile fashion magazines.
He worked with Madonna again in 1996 when she appeared as Eva Peron (first lady of Argentina) on the cover of Vanity Fair in November that year. The next year brought his career to a peak when he photographed Princess Diana for a charity auction. This was just five months before her death.
After the photo shoot of Princess Diana, he became a favorite photographer for the Royal Family. He did the official photographs for Prince Harry’s 18th birthday. He also took the official photograph of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla on their first wedding anniversary.
Mario has published 11 books, the first two of which – Any Objections and Front Row Back Stage – were released in 1998 and 1999 respectively.
Testino’s books Alive and Portraits hit the book stores in 2001 and 2002 respectively. In 2003, his book Kids was published.
The next important milestones in his career came in 2007 and 2009 when his books Let Me In! and Mario De Janeiro were published. The latter, which has many photographs of the Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen, was his tribute to the Brazilian city and its way of life, which he appreciated.
In 2010, his book Kate Moss was published and in 2011, he photographed the supermodel for the September issue of Vogue.
Apart from his pictures and books, Mario Testino also held many successful exhibitions in museums and galleries in many different countries. The National Portrait Gallery in London owes one of its most successful exhibitions to Testino. Its record for the highest number of visitors was held for ten years by his exhibition Portraits in 2002. It was also displayed in many other countries as well.
Some of Testino's photographs:
References:
- Maddocks, F. (2015) David Bailey: Reg Kray said: ‘Ere, Da’. I wish I could have done it legit like you’. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/05/david-bailey-stardust-exhibition-edinburgh-photographer-interview (Accessed: 2015).
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- Biography (no date) Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/cecil-beaton-38501#professional-success (Accessed: 2015).
- Massey, L. (2012) Winged squadrons: The RAF and the war photographs of Cecil Beaton. Available at: http://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/the-war-photographs-of-cecil-beaton/ (Accessed: 2015).
- Pinterest (no date) Available at: https://ro.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=cecil%20beaton%20photography&rs=typed&term_meta%5B%5D=cecil%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=beaton%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=photography%7Ctyped (Accessed: 2015).
- (no date) Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/richard-avedon-9193034 (Accessed: 2015).
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- Guy Bourdin (2015) Available at: http://www.famousphotographers.net/guy-bourdin (Accessed: 2015).
- Pinterest (no date) Available at: https://ro.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=photography%20guy%20bourdin&rs=typed&term_meta%5B%5D=photography%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=guy%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=bourdin%7Ctyped (Accessed: 2015).
- Biography (no date) Available at: http://rankin.co.uk/biography/ (Accessed: 2015).
- Pinterest (no date) Available at: https://ro.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=photography%20rankin&rs=typed&term_meta%5B%5D=photography%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=rankin%7Ctyped (Accessed: 2015).
- Mario Testino facts & biography (no date) Available at: http://famous-photographers.com/mario-testino-2/ (Accessed: 2015).
- Pinterest (no date) Available at: https://ro.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=photography%20mario%20testino&rs=typed&term_meta%5B%5D=photography%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=mario%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=testino%7Ctyped (Accessed: 2015).
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