The Japanese version of this article and video will appear here shortly.
38 Beatles ビートルズ locations Liverpool & Wirral 英語と日本語の字幕 English + Japanese subtitles
The History of Fashion Photography – Essay by Aidan O’Rourke (long read)
I wrote this essay on fashion photography for my A level in Photography which I completed in 1997 at Manchester College of Art and Technology, now part of The Manchester College. I published the essay on the early, hand-built version of my aidan.co.uk site, again in 2004 on my database-driven site, and a third time in 2020 on my present site, powered by WordPress. Along the way, some of the photographs have gone missing. I hope to restore them. Images are the copyright of the photographers and are included on the basis that this is an educational piece of writing and a review of their work. I am planning to have this article translated into German and other languages.
Aidan O’Rourke 28.06.2020
Fig. 1-4
THERE IS A CONTRADICTION in fashion photography. In theory, its purpose the same as that of a catalogue: to depict the clothes and help to sell them. In practice however, fashion photography has been used as a vehicle for self-expression by some of the world’s greatest photographers. Often, the creative desires of the photographers are at odds with the intentions of the editor, as Anna Wintour, fashion editor at Vogue, illustrates:
“Our needs are simple. We want a photographer to take a dress, make the girl look pretty, give us lots of images to choose from, and not give us any attitude. Photographers – if they are any good – want to create art.”
Through this tension have come about some of the most memorable images in the history of photography, transcending the time in which they were made, and encapsulating it for us today.
I became actively interested in fashion photography when, in 1991, I saw an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, detailing the development of the genre in the post war years. I found many of the images extremely captivating and interesting. Though I had enjoyed the fashion photography of contemporary magazines such as Harpers and Queen and Vogue, I had never before seen so many original prints from earlier decades and I responded to them with enthusiasm, hoping to introduce elements of their technique and atmosphere into my own photography.
In this article I intend to analyse, by the use of many of my favourite images, what it is that underlies their timeless appeal, and the techniques the photographers used to achieve their desired effects.
The precursors of fashion photography go back to the eighteenth century, when images of fashionable clothes were printed in magazines and often hand-coloured. Paris was at that time a centre for the production of such magazines, many of which were imported into England. Figure 1a (above) shows a typical example of such an image.
Photography was invented around the 1830s, but it wasn’t until much later that the metier of fashion photography came into existence. The earliest popular photographic technique, the daguerreotype, could not be used for mass printing. A later technique enabled the production of the ‘Carte de Visite’ which were made for individuals and which also depicted famous theatre and music hall personalities of the age. It wasn’t until advances in halftone printing techniques that fashion photographs came to be featured in magazines. This happened in about the first decade of the 20th century.
Baron de Meyer (1868 – 1946) called ‘The Debussy of the Camera’, had wealthy, though not aristocratic origins. He was born Demeyer Watson, of a French father and a Scottish mother, and grew up in Saxony. He came to London and married into nobility. He was given the title Baron de Meyer and set out on a life of extravagant entertaining
His main characteristic was a wonderful use of backlighting and the soft-focus lens. In Fig. 2, (upper right, above) we see many of the characteristics of his style. Though static, the pose is natural, and the picture is arranged using a strong pattern of vertical elements, giving a sense of authority and formality. We can see a clear use of the ‘rule of thirds’ in the placement of the curtains and chair.
What strikes us as being special to Baron de Meyer, however, are the glinting reflections from the background material and the jewels. The overall key is a light grey, the only dark areas being around the sitter’s face, arms and lap. It’s interesting to note that the chair is hardly a suitably aristocratic-looking piece of furniture, but perhaps he chose mainly for its colour.
Edward Jean Steichen (1879-1973) was born in Luxembourg, but his family moved to the USA in 1881. With Alfred Stieglitz, he founded the Photo-Secession Galleries in New York. He first photographed fashion models in 1911 for the magazine ‘Art and Decoration’, and worked with Conde Nast during the twenties. This photo (fig. 3 above, lower left) was made for American Vogue in 1920, and shows Marian Moorehouse, wife of the poet E.E. Cummings, wearing a Chanel gown.
The arrangement of rectangular shapes shows the influence of constructivist art, which was influential at the time. The vertically placed white rectangular card has been carefully positioned to show the shape of the falling drapery, which shows signs of considerable retouching. A piece of horizontally placed black card provides further contrast.
The head and shoulders stand out from the mid grey of the wall, and the toe of the shoe, pointing elegantly downwards, protrudes into the area of white on the floor. A white and black vertical band just to the left of the model, divides the upper part of the picture, and completes the background. The lighting is a combination of general light plus side lighting, on both sides, giving the flesh tones a mid to high key, contrasting with the solid blacks.
This image skilfully uses very simple props to create an elegant arrangement of forms, modernist in flavour, but classical in order and arrangement.
George Hoyningen-Huene (1900 – 1968) was another of the aristocratic practitioners of early fashion photography, and did most of his most memorable work between the mid-twenties and the end of the Second World War. He was born in St Petersburg, but moved to Paris in 1920, where he first did fashion illustration and then photography. He moved to New York in 1935, and worked mainly for Harper’s Bazaar. He spent the latter part of his life in California.
This image (Fig. 4 above, lower right) was used in the 1990s for perfume adverts. It displays a combination of chic and classicism typical of the age. The image shows a meticulous attitude to detail and arrangement. The models are placed very carefully, with close attention to the effect of light and shadow. The combined outline forms a pleasing U shape, similar to a Greek vase. By illusion, the scene appears to be outdoors, but on closer inspection, we can see that, like most fashion shots of the day, it was taken in a studio, and the ‘sea’ is an area of light grey, with the ‘sky’ and faintly painted clouds above it. A very realistic effect of daylight is achieved by a strong, single light, placed to the above left of the subjects.
If you went to the sea and took a photo of it around midday, it would almost certainly appear much darker. The effect of this unnaturally light background is twofold: it makes the models stand out, but more interestingly, it actually simulates how we would see the background in harsh sunlight without sunglasses – very light and slightly fuzzy, due to the smarting of the eyes. The visually inaccurate, but psychologically correct portrayal of the background gives this image its mysterious appeal. The enigmatic quality is heightened by the fact that the models stare away from us, so that we can’t see their faces, and appear to be looking at something out on the ‘sea’, to the right, and beyond the frame of the picture. What are they looking at? What are their faces like? And where exactly is this seaside location?
Fashion Photography Essay – Page 2 – Horst P Horst, Cecil Beaton
Fig. 5 – 8
Horst P Horst (born 1906-1999) was a friend of Hoyningen-Huene, and also had a fascination for classical imagery, indeed he made a detailed study of classical poses, using Greek sculpture and classical paintings, paying special attention to the positioning of hands. In his studio, he used all manner of props, such as plaster statues, mirrors, crumpled paper, exploiting them to both neoclassical and surrealist effect.
This photo (Fig. 5 above) of Helen Bennet is a good example of an image with a strongly classical mood. A single spotlight shines down on the model from the top right. The edges of the spot place shadows on the edges of the pleated cloak, which is exhibited, peacock-fashion in a wonderful display of light and shadow. The model is standing in front of a column, and we can see the shadow of the spotlight forming an arc just to the right of the model’s head. The light falls on the face to form a perfect jaw line, with just the right amount of shadow on the cheekbone (although this might have been retouched).
The pose is statuesque and painterly, reminiscent of the paintings of Alfred Moore. The background is a graduated dark to lighter grey, made apparently by a diffused light placed behind the base. Around the base, there are three pieces of Greek-style plaster sculpture, though these are partly cropped out of the picture. One criticism might be that this arrangement looks botched and amateurish, and that the photographer couldn’t make up his mind whether or not to leave out the base altogether, but decided to crop it half way! In my opinion this doesn’t matter, as the main focus of the image is the model, and her outfit. In his use of props, he was only trying to create an effect of the antique, not, as perhaps in a painting, a detailed and accurate recreation of the real thing.
Cecil Beaton (1904 – 1980) was a contemporary of Horst P Horst and Hoyningen-Huene, and was based in London. His exhibition in 1927 at the Cooling Galleries, London established him as a major photographic figure. Like Horst, he also used elaborate studio props and experimented with surrealism. In the picture of Miss Mary Taylor (Fig. 6), the image is dominated by two large and highly ornate oval-shaped hanging decorations, with flowers and patterns similar to peacock tails. The left hand one is closer to the camera, and is to the model’s right. The right hand one is hanging behind the model, and the edge intersects her face at eye level.
According to traditional rules of composition, the model is too low in the frame, but, like other pictures by Beaton, it is not intended to be a portrait, but an arrangement of forms, patterns, textures and tones, in which the model is included. The decorations, which were probably made up specially for the shot, and don’t resemble anything I’ve ever seen elsewhere, dominate the image, and almost have a life and character of their own, overshadowing the model. There is a light source coming from the right, illuminating the rear wall, and the model’s face. A less intense, more diffuse light on the left fills in dark to mid grey shadows on the model’s face and lights the front of her garment. The placement of the fingers adds an extra element of theatricality to the image.
An interesting development during the 1930s was a change in Beaton’s attitude towards the romanticism and indulgence in his earlier work. This quotation from ‘The Best of Beaton’ written in 1968, gives us the photographer’s insight into the changing mood:
“The posed, static hands with the pointed index finger and arched wrist acquired an overnight vulgarity; the celestial expression in the eyes suddenly became a joke shared by everyone except the sitter. The earlier pictures appeared over retouched and altogether too artificial with ladies with forced rosebud simpers and impossibly golden curls.”
In the meantime, Beaton had developed a more realistic style:
“The results of my experiments in this genre of photography were considered to prove that I had at last grown up, and had acquired a new sense of reality. ‘Reality’ was taken up by editors as the ‘new thing’.”
A result of this change of direction was a contributory factor in the termination of his contract with Vogue in 1938. In the ensuing years he took many war photographs, and a famous example of the then, still prevalent idea of ‘reality’ was this study (Fig. 7 above) of a model standing in a Paris courtyard. The look of the model and the clothes could almost be contemporary. She couldn’t be further removed from the high fashion models of earlier years. The photograph is almost of snapshot character, with very little attention wasted on artful arrangement of forms. The face appears exactly central in the frame, which doesn’t conform to traditional conventions. There is however, subtle evidence of the photographer’s eye – the natural light coming from above is at just the right angle to sculpt the model’s face.
Personally, I feel that the photographer wasn’t being honest with himself. A deliberate urge to throw out former principles and techniques, and go to another extreme, is perhaps a way of trying to prove his versatility or an attempt not to be typecast. Maybe the picture is a product of its time – after six years of gruelling war, people were weary, more concerned with making the best of meagre rations, whether food or cloth, than indulging in opulent fantasies.
By 1948, however, the elegance was back, revived by Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’ collection of 1947. This image (Fig. 8), epitomises the return to grand style, but in a plainer, more direct way than in earlier decades. Eight models are posed in a neoclassical salon, talking and drinking cups of tea from dainty teacups.
There are three light sources, two shining in from the sides, and one very bright one placed behind the two models to the centre left. An additional, low key diffused light shines in from the left of the camera, illuminating very nicely the patterns of silken drapery. The lighting ensures a full range of tones from very bright to near black. Reproductions of this image in two different books turn out, on closer inspection to be not quite the same. The poses are almost identical, except for a couple of small differences.
This must indicate that considerable effort must have gone into placing the models in definite and highly stylised poses, artificial some would say. As we will see, there was a reaction against this which would leave behind the famous prewar photographers, and usher in a new, post war era of spontaneity.
In the meantime, Beaton had developed a more realistic style:
“The results of my experiments in this genre of photography were considered to prove that I had at last grown up, and had acquired a new sense of reality. ‘Reality’ was taken up by editors as the ‘new thing’ ”.
A result of this change of direction was a contributory factor in the termination of his contract with Vogue in 1938. In the ensuing years he took many war photographs, and a famous example of the then, still prevalent idea of ‘reality’ was this study (Fig. 7) of a model standing in a Paris courtyard. The look of the model and the clothes could almost be contemporary. She couldn’t be further removed from the high fashion models of earlier years. The photograph is almost of snapshot character, with very little attention wasted on artful arrangement of forms. The face appears exactly central in the frame, which doesn’t conform to traditional conventions. There are however, subtle evidences of the photographer’s eye – the natural light coming from above is at just the right angle to scupt the model’s face.
Personally, I feel that the photographer wasn’t being honest with himself. A deliberate urge to throw out former principles and techniques, and go to another extreme, is perhaps a way of trying to prove his versatility or an attempt not to be typecast. Maybe the picture is a product of its time – after six years of gruelling war, people were weary, more concerned with making the best of meagre rations, whether food or cloth, than indulging in opulent fantasies.
By 1948, however, the elegance was back, revived by Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’ collection of 1947. This image (Fig. 8), epitomises the return to grand style, but in a plainer, more direct way than in earlier decades. Eight models are posed in a neo-classical salon, talking and drinking cups of tea from dainty teacups.
There are three sources, two shining in from the sides, and one very bright one placed behind the two models to the centre left. An additional, low key diffused light shines in from the left of the camera, illuminating very nicely the patterns of silken drapery. The lighting ensures a full range of tones from very bright to near black. Reproductions of this image in two different books turn out, on closer inspection to be slightly different. The poses are almost exactly the same, except for a couple of small differences.
This must indicate that considerable effort must have gone into placing the models in definite and highly stylised poses, artificial some would say. As we will see, there was a reaction against this which would leave behind the famous pre-war photographers, and usher in a new, post war era of spontaneity.
Fashion Photography Essay – Page 4 – David Bailey, Jean-Loup Sieff, Javier Vallhonrat
Some images on this page were lost during the transfer to this new web page. I hope to place them in the text again.
Fig. 13-16
By the time the ‘Swinging Sixties’ came along, the fashionable (and pretentious) photographer figure became a familiar stereotype. Even now, when an aspiring amateur reaches for his camera and puts on photographer’s airs, people say “Huh, who do you think you are, David Bailey?” Born in 1938, he is one of the few photographers that most people have heard of, and he is still active now.
(Fig. 16 above, lower right) is a casual, almost snapshot-like image, showing a model standing on the side of a New York street at a pedestrian crossing. We see the run-down, and fashionably grimy chic of Manhattan at street level, with lots of signs and lettering. A passer-by has been caught awkwardly on the right hand side of the lamp post. The model, of course, is Jean Shrimpton, in her celebrated ‘A-line’ pose, to match the shape of the outfit. This must be one of the most famous poses a model has ever struck, and came to symbolise a look of the early sixties. In this picture (above left) taken in January 1965 by David Bailey, another quintessential face of that decade is portrayed.. What it doesn’t say about the clothes, it makes up for in the tantalising glimpse we get of Swinging London. The camera is at a ‘swinging’ angle, and fashionable Hampstead Hill is seen silhouetted late in the day, with a tiny figure on a bench just visible.
Marianne Faithfull, looks into the camera with a distant expression, the stray wisp of hair and billowing dress, along with the clouds, alluding to a windy day. The diagonals make for a dynamic image, but it’s also dark and brooding, a deliberate effect done, I think, at darkroom stage. From the look of the clouds, the sun would appear to be fairly high in the sky.
Perhaps our pre-conceived notions about ‘The Sixties’ influence the way we interpret a photograph such as this – the photographer himself was annoyed at being labelled as the photographer of ‘Swinging London’:
“I always hated the King’s Road, really the whole thing was the creation of Time magazine” (quoted in Appearances, page 218)
I can’t help feeling though that this photograph is a window into a place and time I was too young to fully experience, and I wish I could climb through into it!
Quite a different vision from David Bailey, much more planned and controlled, is that of the Japanese photographer Hiro, who came to New York in 1954.
In this image (Fig. 18 lower centre left) we can seen an effect of disorientation caused by the raised viewpoint. The shapes of the clothes are like abstract patterns, or perhaps the flowing drapery of Japanese woodblock print. It reminds us of traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e art. Only the false eyelashes of the right model allow us to date this picture, which is otherwise timeless.
The lower left picture (Fig. 17 above) is also by Hiro. The striking thing about it is the oval shaped area of projected light shining onto on the model’s face from the side, and the areas of fluorescent colour in other parts of the image. The pose is initially confusing, and has the effect of an abstract pattern. Hiro uses very sophisticated design principles in his photographs of fashion models.
One of the more controversial photographers of recent times is Helmut Newton, born in Berlin, Germany, in 1920. He received his training in Berlin, but spent time in Australia and Singapore. He held an Australian passport and lived in Monaco and Los Angeles where he was recently killed in a car accident.
“Few photographers have managed to polarise the art scene on such a regular basis as Helmut Newton. It is split into those who are his fans, and admire his photographs, and his embittered opponents, who denigrate him as a fashionable passing craze, or as a woman-hater.”
Quoted in ‘Photographie des 20. Jahrhunderts’
His pictures, mostly set in expensive hotels, or on the streets of the chic capitals of Europe, feature tall, long-limbed women, often nude, some androgynous. Each picture features an action or situation, inviting viewers to imagine the before and after for themselves. This picture (Fig. 20 below, right) features a woman standing pensively in a man’s suit. There is a feeling of sexual ambiguity, with the slicked back hair, reminiscent of Berlin in the 1920s.
Fig. 17-20
Like most of his images, this is in black and white, and the film is quite grainy, giving a slightly harsh, unromanticised effect. The Parisian back street is full of empty atmospheric eeriness. Perhaps the person has stepped out of the rear entrance of a hotel, or some other establishment, to have a cigarette and take a break, from what? What is she thinking about? And why is she dressed like a man?
The famous image by Helmut Newton of he chauffeur kissing his lady employer is tastefully scandalous in nature. The two have them have descended to a lower level, both figuratively and literally, and the photographer as voyeur catches them as if he were just passing.
The text forms a visual and linguistic pun too: The chauffeur is providing a different ‘service’ from the one on his job contract. ‘Servicios’ in Spanish means ‘toilets’ and this shot might have been made in Spain.
The controversial nature of the type of subject matter – sophisticated women, fashionable upper class milieu, raises questions concerning sexual identity, class, wealth, respectability, female beauty, and notions of good taste.
This photograph by Jean-Loup Sieff (born 1933) is similar to the style of Helmut Newton, but was taken in 1960. The model, Denise Sarrault, looks every bit the rich aristocratic lady or film star – as the photographer remarks, she is like Greta Garbo.
The image is full of symbols of class and power – the shiny Rolls Royce, the pearls and expensive clothes, and the chauffeur, standing to attention. The composition is simple, but brilliantly captures a moment of European hauteur and elegance.
In another Jean Loup Sieff shot, we return to a subject touched on in an earlier picture.
“It was the beautiful Anka, with her desperately tiny waist, who posed in this 1900 corset. In spite of her slim figure, she found it difficult to breathe.”
(Quoted in Jean-Loup Sieff Monograph, page 131)
Evidently so, as we can see in the pose and the position of the hands, the left hand one touching her hip awkwardly. The outline is uneven, and the material squeezes the waist and digs into the skin at the legs. We are left in no doubt of the discomfort involved in wearing it. An uncomfortable image, perhaps, but sexually arousing for some, and symbolic of an ideal of fin-de-siècle femininity which seems to live on as a symbol of Paris and French couture to this day.
The poignancy of the image is enhanced by the simple lighting, coming from a softbox to the left, with a plain grey background. The frame is tightly cropped, cutting out part of the arms, but focusing the attention directly onto the model’s hips and waist. The legs are slightly crossed to enhance the hourglass shape of the body.
As we near the end of this assignment, we approach closer to more contemporary times. One photographer who has featured prominently in the last ten years or so is the American, Matthew Rolston. In ‘Aly, Long Neck, Los Angeles’ (image currently unavailable) we can see what may be one of the first examples of the use of digital imaging in fashion photography. It’s typical of the playful, experimental and eclectic nature of fashion photography in the last decade or so.
A conventional head and upper torso shot of a model is transformed by extreme elongation of the neck, a hat covering the head, with an eye in the middle, which has a keyhole in it. Visually arresting it may be, but I can’t help thinking of a one-eyed ostrich! The transformational possibilities of image manipulation (digital or otherwise), are not put to use here in a way I like.
Despite an unprecedented range of technical possibilities at the disposal of today’s photographers, I can’t help preferring the more classic images of the earlier part of the century to the ‘anything goes’ style of photography one often sees in magazines today, though certain other examples of Matthew Rolston’s extremely varied work I like a lot, but unfortunately not the next one!
This composite (Fig. 25 below left) of Keanu Reeves demonstrates the arrival to the fashion photography of the eighties of a more sexual and physical approach to the depiction of the male, as seen here. Four closely cropped studies of different parts of the actors body are rendered in a sepia brown. Symbols of street culture – denim, a knife, a leather waistcoat, feature prominently. Just like Baron Demeyer, George Hoyningen-Huene, Richard Avedon and David Bailey, it captures an impression of the age, and personally I don’t like it!
I’ll conclude with the image by Javier Vallhonrat (below right) which appears on the cover of ‘The Idealising Vision’, showing a nude female model in a levitating pose, surrounded by a floating length of material, emanating a ghostly luminescence.
I liked this image initially for its use of light, but it has a puzzling fascination which is somehow a reflection of our times – the model could almost be a sculpture in a neon-based art gallery installation.
The glowing light, and the almost otherworldly, ectoplasmic nature of the material, may be evidence of current paranormal obsessions as exemplified in programmes such as The X-Files. The visual effects may well have been achieved by use of digital imaging, though they could also have been achieved by traditional techniques.
The italic f shape formed by the material also looks like some strange kind of other-worldly creature, which the model is riding like a horse. A suitably cryptic and futuristic image to conclude this assignment.
Photos by an unknown fashion photographer around 1965
Footnote:
On a visit to an office in Knutsford, Cheshire on 11 May 2004 I saw these photos on display. From the style of fahion and make up, it’s clear that they were taken in the early sixties. The photographer is unknown.
I would love to know the name of the photographer, the date they were taken and the name of the model. If you can help, please get in touch.
Their plane, an Airspeed Ambassador, stopped at Munich to refuel. It was snowing and there were freezing temperatures. On the third attempt to take off, the plane came off the runway and exploded. Half the team died. Manager Matt Busby was seriously injured. His life hung in the balance. Nine team members survived. Matt Busby recovered and started building a new team.
What goes through the mind of a photo competition judge when he or she is choosing which photos to select? Are there any tips or guidelines you can follow if you’re submitting photos? Is it just a matter of personal taste or are the best photos always selected?
