The History Of Fashion Photography

Fashion imitating art imitating life.

(video courtesy of Hupix Fashion & Commercial Photography)

image of the week: rice paddies | artography

Yunnan Province, China

mj

pop art portraits by igor klepnev

Inspired by hip-hop, street art, graphics and cinema, Moscow, Russia based photographer Igor Klepnev captured the stunning Pop Art Portraits.

Igor has been photographing in fashion, art-fashion and portrait genres since 2009 and is currently working with musician Jesse Boykins.

mj

colours by joanna kustra | artography

This gallery contains 13 photos.

beauty editorial for Vatra Magazine. Joanna is a portrait and fashion photographer based in London. @JoannaKustra http://www.joannakustra.com mj

celluloid & style: the works of sir norman parkinson

“Parkinson’s brilliance has everything to do with time, and defying it – for he managed to be something that should be logically impossible, a “timeless” fashion photographer whose art danced through the decades and always remained in style.”

The Guardian

http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/21/sir-norman-parkinson-google-doodle

mj

cannes femmes in black & white.

” There has never been a female director who has won an Oscar. There has only been one woman who won at the Cannes Film Festival.”

– Salma Hayek.

Here’s to hoping 2013 will see a shift in that paradigm.

mj

13 queens – alex&felix

rulers over surreal worlds

There are unfamiliar worlds waiting to be discovered, filled with very well known objects of our everyday life yet staged in an unexpected way beyond recognition, draped with exuberant costumes of various shapes and colours. The insignia of power, the signs of their dreamland, hang from their bodies, stick to their skin and surround the sphere of their heads. These queens have truly incorporated their sensual empire. Every single one a proud queen, patron saint of ornaments, ruler over an empire of symbols, inviting the viewer to lose oneself. “13 Queens” – that is an intriguing gallery of flamboyantly dressed dignitaries – definitely not from this world. The more one contemplates a picture the less obvious becomes the queen in its midst: the magic emanates from the details, from the reinterpreted use of objects and from the desire to find ever more magical ornaments.

alex & felix

I fell in love with the work of this Swiss photography duo after seeing an exhibit in London in 2011.

Fascinating. Enchanting.

Queen Minnie Mouse

Queen Slide

Queen Motorhead

Queen Vinyl

Queen Happy

Queen Rocket

Queen Sandwich

Queen Alphabet

Queen Tin

Queen Glitter

Queen Spoon

Queen Revolver

Queen Marzipan

mj

yabonga exhibition: arts for action – khayelitsha

This morning I visited the The Art for Action exhibition at The Black Box gallery in Cape Town, where the passion, talent and resilience of the Yabonga community was celebrated.

Art for Action is about the power of creative expression.

This project began when disposable cameras were given to twenty Yabonga youth at the Luvuyo center. A photography workshop was conducted by documentary photographer, Nikki Rixon, where the youth learned about composition and various aspects of this art form. The youth, ranging in ages 14-20, were then asked to take photos depicting various aspects of their lives and the perceptions that they hold of their surroundings. Respect to Olivia Rogine and her team for putting everything together and for their boundless faith in the kids.
 
Yabonga is an organisation for women and children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. That being said, all of the photos displayed in the gallery were taken by youth who are affected by the virus in some manner. By allowing these youth to express themselves through photography a greater understanding of the communities in which they live, the schools that they attend and the quality of their lives will be gained. 
 
The goal behind this exhibition is to create a sense of pride in the children and to foster positive ways of expressing themselves.

On meeting and being among these kids, absorbing their energy, hearing their stories and just sharing in the creativity and what inspired their art I realise that all of us, world over, have struggles, a dream, a set of beliefs, values and talents which both set us apart AND brings us together in the name of art.

I am in awe of what these kids have managed to capture with so little experience (some have said to me that this was the first time they have held a camera) and limited resources. This gives me hope and a clearer understanding of the responsibilities we have as the current generation to honour, nurture and develop the talents of those who will lead our future worlds.

Go see: http://voicesofyabonga.tumblr.com/ for more.

xo
 

mj

bill cunningham: the original street style snapper.

Decades before The Sartorialist and Tommy Ton, Bill Cunningham was photographing street fashions. Now an incredible new documentary ‘Bill Cunningham New York’ tells his life story.

Cunningham, 81, has been documenting the fashions found on New York Streets for the last 50 years. With a battered Nikon camera, he goes everywhere on his bicycle, snapping anything that catches his eye.
“The best fashion show is definitely on the street,” he says in the film. “Always has been. Always will be.”

His obsessive love of fashion, he explains thus: “There is no reason to be doom and gloom and think that fashion is finished… The wider world perceives fashion as frivolity that should be done away with. The point is that fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life. I don’t think you can do away with it, it would be like doing away with civilisation.”
Reclusive, and fiercely private about his personal life, it took Richard Press, the film’s director and his producer, Philip Gefter, eight years to convince their subject to appear in the documentary. Once Bill gave the OK, though, it was still an uphill battle. Often they would loiter at the New York Times offices or outside the Carnegie Hall where Cunningham lives in a tiny artist’s studio, hoping he would allow them to switch on their camera. Basically, they say, they wore him down.
The biggest names in fashion and New York society, however, were only too eager to come forward to talk about Cunningham, and share their anecdotes about him.
“I have said many times that we all get dressed for Bill,” says Anna Wintour. “He’s been documenting me ever since I was a kid. And it’s one snap, two snaps or he ignores you, which is death,” she laughs.
Tom Wolfe is interviewed praising Cunningham’s ability to distill a moment or a mood in the city at a time when “New York society becomes harder and harder to define,” he says.
At a screening on Monday night hosted by the CFDA’s Steven Kolb and Calvin Klein Collection’s Francisco Costa and Italo Zucchelli; Grace Coddington, Hamish Bowles and Carolyn Murphy were amongst the fashion VIPs in attendance. Others who appear in the film include Brooke Astor, Annette de la Renta, Patrick Macdonald, Anna Piaggi, Michael Kors, Carmen Dell’Orefice and Iris Apfel.
“Bill Cunningham has such integrity – his legacy is phenomenal,” Costa tells the Telegraph. “When we saw the film for the first time I was so moved by it. Richard and Philip should receive a lot of acclaim for making such a graceful and worthy documentary.”
From Upper East Side swans, European royalty and aspiring fashionistas; to street gangs, punks, downtown transvestites and even bicycle messengers – if there is something interesting to say about the clothes, Cunningham will snap them.

“Street Style emerged at the same point that Bill got a camera,” in the mid-1960s, says Harold Koda, curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Bill was the first to document “ordinary people going about their day dressed in extraordinary ways,” he says.
“He is a true egalitarian, however that doesn’t mean that he isn’t aware of cultural division and hierarchies. He just treats it all the same,” Koda adds.
Cunningham attends the fashion shows in New York and Paris, he also covers the most prestigious social events each night in New York for his page in the Times called “Evening Hours.”
His big break came in 1978, when he was struck by the sight of a beautiful fur coat being worn by a woman – although the woman interested him less than the coat.

“I thought: ‘Look at the cut of that shoulder. It’s so beautiful,'” he later wrote in the Times. “And it was a plain coat, too. You’d look at it and think: ‘Oh, are you crazy? It’s nothing.’ ” It was only after he noticed the wearer was causing a stir, that he realised it was Greta Garbo.

That week, he had also photographed Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Farrah Fawcett, a Kennedy in a fox coat and the King and Queen of Spain, carrying plastic shopping bags. He got his first page in the Times shortly thereafter.
“I am not interested in celebrities with their free dresses. I am interested in clothes,” says Cunningham.
“The main thing I love about street photography is that you find the answers you don’t see at the fashion shows… If you just cover the designers in the shows, that’s only one facet. You also need the street and the evening hours. If you cover the three things, you have the full picture of what people are wearing,” Cunningham has said.

He captures some of the most decadent events on the fashion calendar – the couture shows in Paris, for example – yet Cunningham must be history’s most frugal fashion observer. He sleeps on a camp bed in his studio surrounded by filing cabinets. The bathroom is down the hall and shared with other tenants. He never eats out and owns perhaps four outfits at most – his uniform is a blue workman’s smock (with lots of pockets) which he buys from a DIY store in Paris. The street-sweepers there wear the same shirt. In the rain, he cycles in a plastic poncho full of holes repaired with gaffer tape. He is on his 28th bicycle, having had 27 stolen in New York over the years.
Of his reluctance to accept even a glass of water at any of the events he covers, he tells the cameras: “You see, if you don’t take money they can’t tell you what to do, that’s the key to the whole thing.”

Says Press: “Bill has chronicled the intersection of fashion, society and culture in New York for over fifty years like an anthropologist… Bill’s rigorous work ethic, his joy and passion for his subject matter, and the simplicity with which he lives his life; all of that is an inspiration.”

In 2008, Cunningham was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres , by the French Ministry of Culture. In his speech, he was overcome with emotion. He told the assembled glitterati: “It’s as true today as it ever was. He who seeks beauty, will find it”

(Melissa Whitworth, Telegraph Fashion)

Check out the video “Bill Cunningham: Words Of Wisdom” here:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-rim&v=j5TUCmAWl9g#watch_actions

Beauty is in the eye of the lens holder.

Stay inspired.

xo

mj