Contemporary fashion photography is personal and subjective. This means the element of performance enters the equation. The most intense, personal, and subjective photographs require a special connection between the photographer and the performer.
A photoshoot isn’t a construction site where you go in with a plan and then put brick to brick, steel girder to steel girder until you have a full building.
This process is very personal, and in order to get the performer to become personal, I have to become personal as well.
A photoshoot is a work in progress that only finds all ingredients in place once it has started. It isa performance, defined by the human experience at this very moment.
The center is the performer, the actor. The term “model” is misleading, as it gives the impression of something inanimate, like a mannequin. The term mannequin in German means “model”. The circle of errors closes.
The model will stop to be a puppet that displays clothing, and become a human being and perform all across the register of human experiences.
Showing things (products) does not engage communication. Showing people in human experiences attracts audiences, and these emotions will cross over to the products (the fashion designs)
Then we have something in the picture that tells us something, and e look. And we remember. Commercial companies will understand that showing objects will lead to zero communication, but showing humans that experience will give them attention – and their clothing designs and make it attractive to a buying audience.
Human Experiences – The Very Moment
People are always different. They have moods. My task is to get them out of everyday mood into special moments that show their humanity. It’s a performance. The model or actor in front of me will always be able to do the moves and show the clothes, but if I want the extraordinary I have to get creative.
Actors have an expression for this: to be in the moment. It means they get out of their everyday existence and become human, kick out the clutter of their everyday thoughts and become what can only be called “monumental”, all about the expression of a specific idea, thought, emotion, or of all three of them.
In the world of marketing make-believe, a shred of truth is invaluable.
When I excite a performer into this state of mind, he or she will show me something real, something about his or her truest nature. This is something worth looking at, as it gives you a tangible truth. In the world of marketing make-believe, a shred of truth is invaluable.
It is very personal, and for this I have to become personal as well. As for our commercial society that sends commercial messages all day and night and every second: in order to be heard, you will have to stop make-believe, and get down to something that is truth.
The commercial world will need the artistic and personal view to reengage the interrupted communications
The commercial world will need the artistic and personal view to reengage the interrupted communications, and the circle of destruction of communication ends, and there is sense and meaning again.
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