Photographer of the Month: Javier Vallhonrat

Javier Vallhonrat is a Spanish photographer, born in Madrid in 1953.  He began working for Italian Vogue in the mid 80s, and most of his current photos can be seen in Flair and British Vogue. His use of lighting is extraordinary, and he has a really strong signature style. It's nice to see that he is still going strong after over 25 years in the business.

Mr. Valhonrat is represented by Michelle Filomeno

Some earlier work from the late 80s

Vogue Italia 1989

Vogue Italia 1988

Some more recent editorials

Flair

Vogue Germany April 2010

Vogue UK May 2006

Vogue UK October 2005

Flair May 2006

Flair March 2005

Vogue UK 2008

Vogue UK April 2010

All images copyright Javier Valhonrat

Photographer of the Month: Jean-François Lepage

Jean-François Lepage is a French photographer who began his photographic career in Paris in 1980. 

Lepage is an artist who's style is immediately recognizable, he almost always uses a portable studio pack with a raw bulb, and quite frequently layers and scratches his negatives. He's has flown under the radar in North America, but we have admired his work for a long time now.

Here is a selection of some of his work, the outdoor shots are definitely favourites!

All images copyright Jean-François Lepage

R.I.P. Corinne Day

Corinne Day, one of 1990s most influential photographers, passed away last Friday, following a ten-year battle with brain cancer at 45. The British self-taught photographer’s stripped-down, de-glossed aesthetic was a breath of fresh air when she rose to prominence, coming on the heels of the ultra-stylized shoots of the 1980’s.

Corinne launched Kate Moss‘ career when she shot the unknown 16-year old model  for The Face in 1990. 
In Summer of Love, Day photographed Moss running around the beach wearing nothing but a feathered headdress and a pair of Birkenstocks. The photographs, published in style bible The Face captured the zeitgeist with such acuity that they changed the course of fashion photography.

Day had unwittingly opened the door on a new aesthetic that had been simmering at lower levels, she took the work she saw in Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency and Larry Clark’s Tulsa and made the leap from art to commerce. When Day shot Moss for Vogue UK's June 1993 issue hanging around the house in underwear, a hurricane of disapproval was unleashed. Editors described the photographs as "just this side of porn", "hideous and tragic" and coined "heroin chic".

Day photographed Kate Moss countless times, and the two were an amazing force of late 90s aesthetic.

The controversial photographs hardly seen as shocking anymore, but Day’s work fuelled a whole generation of photographers like Juergen Teller, Craig McDean, David Sims and Glen Luchford who took her underground look and applied it to mainstream fashion.

1993 Vogue UK

Day's work from various magazines from 2000s.

Photographer of the Month: Viviane Sassen

Viviane Sassen was born in 1972, and is a Dutch photographer currently living and working in Amsterdam. 

Viviane grew up in Africa, and her latest photo book Flamboya is full of hyperstylized imagery that depicts it in a graphic, boldly colored, and a bit surreal way. 

Viviane on her work: "I am interested in strong shapes and colors. I have always been attracted to a sort of graphic style. In Africa I thought the very harsh sun was something I should take advantage of. For most photographers it's horror. But I felt like, No, this is how it really is.

VS: "In my photography you see a lot of transformed bodies, or faces that you can't really see. I like to create confusion and to make people to think... In a photo you always see the vision of the photographer translated. It's not objective, it's tainted."

 What we love about Viviane's work is that she tends to treat the body like an element, an abstract shape with blocks of shadow and bright colors that seem like cut outs or paper collages. Bodies become bold, abstract and beautiful.  

Below is some of her editorial work:

Latest editorial assignments for Numéro:

Pop Fall/Winter 2009: 

The illusions on this 2001 Miu Miu campaign are super clever.

Some more editorial & commercial work:

All images copyright Viviane Sassen

Photographers of the Month: Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin

We've been fans of Dutch photographers Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin for what seems like forever, and even after 25 years of working together they are still creating some of the best fashion imagery and celebrity portraiture out there.

The duo met in 1986, fresh out of art school, but it wasn't until they moved to New York in 1995 that their careers exploded. Pretty Much Everything, a retrospective of 300 of their photographs from 1985 to present, will be on view at Amsterdam’s Foam Museum through Sept. 15. Taschen will will also put our an epic tome of 666 photographs, which I can't wait to get my hands on!

The Lamsweerde & Matadin archive is far too vast to showcase or summarize here, the amount of work they have under their belt is astonishing. Here are some of my favourite examples of their ability to produce a beautiful & simple commercial campaigns and collaborate with models in a timeless, classic way.

YSL Summer & Fall '09, featuring supermodels Christy Turlington & Claudia Schiffer.

Stella McCartney '06 & '07 campaign, featuring supermodels Amber Valletta & Kate Moss.

In an interview with wwd.com , Inez speaks out about their work — past, present and future.

On models: "Raquel Zimmermann, Daria Werbowy, Kate Moss and Anja Rubik all have this huge range. They’re mature, grown up, they’re women who have had a life and experience. For about five or six years now we haven’t shot anyone under 18 for that reason, but also for the fact that we feel that the modeling business should not promote girls working under 18. They’re not out of school, their bodies aren’t developed yet, they don’t have a sense of self yet."

Vogue Paris February 2010 with Daria Werbowy

Raquel Zimmermann & Anja Rubik in a 2007 Chloe campaign

Mariacarla (with Inez) in Givenchy

Jessica Miller in "Before & After"

Hungarian model Eniko, who's success is vastly attributed to Inez & Vinoodh.

On being fashion photographers: We love what clothes do to build a character in your picture. There’s something that I find fascinating about the language of clothes. It’s kind of like a set of codes that everyone universally understands. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, I’m not into fashion. I don’t care about what I wear.’ But when they go for a job interview, they wear something different than what they would wear just to go work in the garden or pick up the kids from school. You are saying something with what you wear.

Collaborations with French art directors M/M.

On shooting celebrities: I actually love it. It’s like a conquest each time. Usually I get quite a good sense in the first five minutes as to how much they want to play with you and how open they are. The sitting is no longer than 15 to 20 minutes. A lot of people say that they feel hypnotized after they shoot with us because it’s a very, very, very focused, short period of time. Usually within the first five frames we have the picture. 

Viggo Mortensen & Rachel Weisz, Gwyneth Paltrow & Bjork

Lamsweerde & Matadin have become celebrities in their own right, and have referenced themselves and their fine art works in commercial applications.

Some early gallery work and a recent Lanvin campaing featuring both the photographers.