Theunis Stofberg Shooting some of Kim Gush’s menswear at the Taalmonument
Duffy - man and legend
Those of you who have had the pleasure of sittng through on of my boring Fashion photography History lessons will have heard me speak about Duffy, one of the biggest legends from the school of british photograhers that changed the face of fashion in the 1960’s.If you have not been fortunate enough to sit through one of these lessons then you can always have a look a this documentary.
The documentary, done by his son Chris Duffy, is an amazing look at the ri of the young photographers like duffy and David Bailey and how Duffy gave it all up.
Duffy together with David Bailey and Terence Donovan is recognized as one of the innovators of “documentary” fashion photography, a style which revolutionized fashion imagery and furthermore the fashion industry. So influential were their images that in 1962 the Sunday Times dubbed Duffy, Bailey & Donovan the “Terrible Trio” and Norman Parkinson further added to their notoriety by naming them “The Black Trinity”. Together they dominated the London photographic scene, constantly pushing each other to new heights. Even socially they would spend many hours together talking, living and breathing photography.
The Chase
In the last year I have substantially changed my way of thinking about photography and the future of photography. with the internet playing an ever bigger role in our lives and the likes of Youtube and Vimeo making huge impacts in storytelling I have decided to become more active with videography. At the moment I have done 5 short videos in the last month. Things i have learnt is that the learning curve is incredibly steep. From someone that understands the art involved with the execution of single images a set of moving images suddenly poses so many new challenges. This is the first of my series of videos done with some of my Styling students from Elizabeth Galloway academy of Fashion Design. Have a look.
This is a short video produced and styled by students from the Elizabeth Galloway Academy of Fashion Desing in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
The Princess Project
Every year Elizabeth Galloway donates heavily to a series of causes. One of the causes they have donated to in the last few years has been the Princess Project. This charity organizes and loans Matric Farewell (Prom) dresses to those that cant afford it. Last year the graduate students of Elizabeth Galloway did a group project where they designed and fabricated a dress for the Project. As the Academy is in the process of donating the dresses at the moment we thought it a good idea to do a shoot of the clothing to keep it for posterity. Hope you enjoy the results. More images after the jump.
Exhibition with Between 10&5
A few months ago I contacted the people from the very popular blog Between 10&5 with a request. As I have a lot of students that want to enter into the magazine world and become stylists I was looking for an oppurtunity for them to show their skills. They replied really quickly and pretty soon we had a working concept. Between 10&5 would supply the photographers, all of them also in need of exposure, and I would supply the stylists. After a bit of brain-racking the theme they decided on was Classic Novels. We randomly assigned photographers to stylists and then randomly assigned books to them. The books were all books well known to most readers with classic tomes likes Lord of the Flies, Valley of the Dolls and Practical Magic.
The shoots happened ( I had to do one of them after the stylists had a fall-out with their assigned photographer) and it will now feature in an exhibition, sponsored by ORMS, this friday. Hope to see you there.
Restrepo
Even though I have had the movie on the verge of my consciousness for the last year or so I never actually got round to watch the Oscar nominated documentary Restrepo. And then last week the maker and videographer of the movie died a tragic death. Tim Hetherington was one of those photographers that didn’t mind going into the asshole of the world, didnt mind staring into the void. He, like many other war photographers, have probably become addicted to it, but despite this crazy streak he was one of the photographers that I found to be truly objective ( as far as war photography can be objective) and with his death in Libya the photographic community have lost a light.
Exit through the Gift shop
So i recently watched Exit through the Gift Shop, the movie that the underground artist Banksy was Oscar nominated for. Needless to say i thought it was brilliant. It did ask some very serious questions about Art and its validity.