Twenty years as his agent and five as his gallerist, and what I admire most is how easy he makes it look. All of this was difficult. None of it looks it.
A picture like "& Boom" exists for a second, once. He prepares so completely that when it arrives there is nothing to do but enjoy it. For "Ansley on Balance", nothing out in that desert could hold a swing, so the rig was carried in and built. His sets go up fast and quietly, and on the day it looks like a normal morning's work.
For "Red Tail Over Sand" he put the camera high so the desert could stay empty and let the dress do the moving: it takes the whole foreground and she is a detail inside it. Wind, sand, rock, water — he puts somebody in the middle of it and gives them room. The place supplies the drama. He supplies the calm.
In "Fading" you find the rock before you find the dress: he lets the landscape lead, because confidence is knowing the picture will still be yours. He asks a great deal of the people in front of him and makes it feel possible, a rarer gift than any of the obvious ones.
Boumort: deep shade in front, a lake blazing behind, and he keeps both. That is not luck. Talent is the part people mention and the part he leans on least. He studies, he prepares, he invests in himself. I have never heard him call a shoot good and leave it there: he says what he will do better, then does it. The freedom you see on the day was bought months earlier.
And the part I have watched for twenty years: his pictures turn up again elsewhere. In a campaign, a casting, a mood board. He is the reference others work from, and in this industry that is the most honest compliment there is.
The hardest thing in photography is making a difficult picture look effortless. That is what he does.
Nine chapters to go.
In order: "Yoon Young Bae, Lanzarote" · "& Boom" · "Ansley on Balance" · "Red Tail Over Sand" · "Fading" · "Melting Rock" · "Force of Nature" · "Tanya" · "Qun Ye" · "Assa in Ibiza". 2016-2024.
The works shown are available. The gallery is open, as always, by appointment.
