George
Hurrell
George Edward Hurrell was born on June
1, 1904 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, Edward, was born there too, of
English and Irish parents. His paternal grandfather had come from Essex,
England where the family had been successful shoe manufacturers for several
centuries. Hurrell’s mother, Anna Mary Eble was born in Germany, but had
moved with her family to Cincinatti as a child.
Hurrell is credited with creating the standard
for the idealized Hollywood glamour portrait. Always an innovator, he invented
the boom light and developed several—now standard—lighting techniques.
Hurrell’s signature use of precision lighting, spotlights, shadows, and
hand-retouching on the negatives produced romantic portraits that became his
trademark style and the definition of glamour for the movie industry. This
influential look became known as “Hurrell style.”
Classically trained as a painter, Hurrell
employed fine art techniques in his compositions. Beginning in 1930, Hurrell
worked as a portrait photographer for most of the major Hollywood motion
picture studios, first with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While most of the country
suffered during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the movie industry thrived.
During this time especially, Hurrell’s photographs did more than just promote a
film or a celebrity; for many, the glamour, romance, and drama of these photos
provided a momentary mental escape from difficult times.
Erwin Blumenfeld
Erwin Blumenfeld's early career began in an older
photographic age. Born in Germany in 1897 his business took off in
the 30s, where he photographed customers at his leather goods shop in
Amsterdam. From the start he was very much influenced by the idea of
photography as art, valuing sincerity above commercial considerations. He saw
himself not as a photojournalist, but as someone who explored how best to show
a fashionable object without documenting it.
From these beginnings he moved to experimentation with
colours (Red on Red, 1954), darkroom
techniques and the use of mirrors and light, most famously in his 1952 portrait
of Audrey Hepburn.
Having fled Nazi Germany for America in 1941, by the
end of the 1940s he was the highest paid photographer in the world, working for
such famous fashion magazines as American Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Life, Look
and Cosmopolitan.
Richard Avedon
By capturing American ideals of celebrity, fashion, and beauty in the 20th and early 21st centuries, Richard Avedon helped to establish photography as a contemporary art form. Avedon’s distinct style of portrait photography is nothing short of iconic. While the portraiture of his contemporaries focused on single moments or composed formal images, his stark lighting and minimalist white backdrops drew the viewer to the intimate, emotive power of the subject’s expression. Between 1945 and 1965, he worked as a fashion photographer, revolutionizing the craft even as he honed his aesthetic. His work appeared in magazines from Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue to Life and Look. Later, he moved into journalism and the art world. Avedon’s subjects included pop icons, models, musicians, writers, artists, workers, political activists, soldiers, Vietnam War victims, politicians, and his family.
Patrick
Demarchelier
Patrick Demarchelier is a master
photographer whose images capture an often surprising and spontaneous vitality
in even the most powerful icons of beauty and culture. Perhaps his best-known
photographs are his portraits of Diana, taken with her sons, which helped to
establish her as ‘the people’s Princess.’
For
more than three decades, Demarchelier’s images have helped define nearly every
major fashion magazine including American, British and French Vogue. He has also created
advertising images for clients including Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Louis
Vuitton, Dior, Calvin Klein, Gianfranco Ferré, Armani, Max Mara, Moschino,
L’Oréal, Pirelli and Tiffany.
Mario Testino
Mario Testino OBE is widely regarded as
one of the most influential fashion and portrait photographers of our times.
His photographs have been published internationally in magazines such as Vogue, V Magazine and Vanity Fair. He has contributed to the success of
leading fashion and beauty houses, creating emblematic images for brands
from Gucci, Burberry, Versace and Michael Kors to Chanel, Estée Lauder and
Lancôme.
Alongside
his 35-year practice as a photographer, Testino has realised a body of work as
a creative director, guest editor, museum founder, art
collector/collaborator and entrepreneur. In 2007, at the
request of his clients to provide full creative direction services, he
formed MARIOTESTINO+ which today is a growing
team of individuals who support Testino to realise the breadth of his creative
output.
Rankin
Rankin made
his name in publishing, founding the seminal monthly magazine Dazed &
Confused with Jefferson Hack in 1992. It provided a platform for innovation for
emerging stylists, designers, photographers and writers. The magazine went on
to forge a distinctive mark in the arts and publishing spheres, and developed a
cult status forming and moulding trends, and bringing some of the brightest
lights in fashion to the foreground.
Rankin has
created landmark editorial and advertising campaigns. His body of work features
some of the most celebrated publications, biggest brands and pioneering
charities, including Nike, Swatch, Dove, Pantene, Diageo, Women’s Aid, and
Breakthrough Breast Cancer. He has shot covers for Elle, German Vogue, Harpers
Bazaar, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone and Wonderland. His work has always
endeavoured to question social norms and ideas of beauty and, in late 2000,
Rankin published the heteroclite quarterly Rank, an experimental anti-fashion
magazine celebrating the unconventional.
David Bailey
To capture the pure essence and
beauty of life, to tell a story, or to simply communicate and idea is the art
of photography. It has been David's natural talent and ability as a
photographer to visually communicate that has garnered him the respect and
recognition of his peers.
Sometimes a small gift or
thoughtful gesture can shape a person's entire life. It was just such a moment
that led David to the pursuit of his dream. As with most siblings, David wanted
to emulate his brother. He longed to follow in his brother's artistic footsteps
but in his own creative direction. Sensing this untapped talent, his brother
gave him his first camera, a 35mm Voigtlander and from there an inspiration
grew.
In 1994, David introduced David
Bailey Photography, which has grown to represent some of the most highly
recognized corporate clients in the US. With over 30 years of experience, David
has artistically captured the spirit of each image with a genuine depth of
feeling and emotion.
His award-winning work is derrived
from client assignments and from self-assigned projects that he has included in
his portfolio of stock photography. Not only has he traveled this country
finding the moment waiting to be forever remembered, his work has taken him on
photographic explorations of cultures around the world.
