Miss Moss : Photography : Page 4

Photography

Mark Shaw

Monday 1 October, 2012 / Photography, Vintage / Comments { 25 }

you’re probably familiar with the work of fashion & celebrity photographer Mark Shaw, who was especially well known for his collection of photographs of the Kennedys. he shot over 100 stories in his 16 year career with LIFE magazine in the 1950s & 60s, and was one of the first photographers who documented backstage fashion at couture shows like Balmain and Balenciaga. if you’re feeling flush you can buy limited edition original prints of his work from the Andrew Wilder gallery. Here are some of my favourite stories he covered.

Audrey Hepburn

Portraits for LIFE Magazine of Hepburn while filming Sabrina. This entire shoot had lingered forgotten for more than fifty years in a box at the home of Mark’s first wife and were rediscovered in 2008. Initially Audrey Hepburn did all she could to avoid Mark Shaw’s cameras. When she realized they shared intense devotion to their work, she began to treat him like a member of the family.

Jackie Kennedy & family

These images were taken for an assignment from LIFE magazine about Jackie Kennedy which ran in 1959 while JFK was making his White House run. In the late 1950′s and early 1960′s Mark Shaw worked extensively as the “unoffical” family photographer to Jackie and John F. Kennedy.

Coco Chanel

Chanel was quoted at the time as saying that “Shaw had crept as close to her as anyone is likely to get with their LEICA on”. Shaw’s informal, grainy, black and white images of Chanel were captured using an unobtrusive 35 mm camera and film processing methods that enabled him to eliminate all other photographic equipment. The result is a highly personal and intimate look into a day in the life of this iconic woman.

Various artists - Picasso, Chagall, Fernand Leger & Miro

backstage at Balmain, 1954

various fashion editorials photographed in St. Tropez, Paris, Portofino…

Comments { 25 }

Lee Towndrow

Thursday 20 September, 2012 / Photography / Comments { 12 }

Lee Towndrow is a designer turned photographer from Canada who has travelled and lived all over the world, eventually settling in New York – where he continues to produce beautiful & interesting work. usually i’d select my favourite images when featuring a photographer, but Lee’s individual projects are so interesting and really deserve to be seen in their entirety. i particularly loved his ongoing series of Paper Portraits, as well as the personal projects Anachronisms No.1 & Anachronisms No.2 – where old men and young kids essentially switch places. No.2 (the one with the kids) is especially beautiful to me, as it was shot on film using only natural light. impressive!

Paper Portraits

“Lee Towndrow was looking for a way to reinvent the portrait. He began experimenting with the colored paper common to photography studios in a more three dimensional way.” – Bransch

Anachronisms No.2

“In these large-scale colour photographs, I construct a series of anachronisms as a means to study intimacy and the fashion image. I’ve been watching the relationships around me changing. When we’re young, we’re unfamiliar with closeness and intimacy, and yet it all comes very naturally to us. And as we age, we tend to distance ourselves from others, choosing in some cases to become personally intimate only with a partner. I was interested in what it might look like when those roles were reversed.”

Anachronisms No.1

“Lee Towndrow has inverted our expectations by casting seniors in the role of a band of youthful, carefree, streetwise hooligans. As a testament to his theatrical and photographic skills, Towndrow’s series is replete with detail, expression, emotion and narrative. We feel like we are part of The Juniors. But do we want to go back and relive our youth?” - Heather Morton

all photographs by Lee Towndrow

Comments { 12 }

Nishe

Thursday 6 September, 2012 / Photography / Comments { 22 }

i discovered the photography of Nishe through flickr – which lead me to her blog, which in turn lead me to her website… and all the while i wondered who she was, but i couldn’t find any information about her. which, in the age of the internet, seems kind of crazy right? so i did what any good fan / stalker would do – i sent her an email, and got to know the girl behind these beautiful photographs. Nishe is the pseudonym of Magdalena Lutek, a 27 year old graphic designer from Poland. says Magdalena,

Photography has been my biggest love since I was 15. I used to take black and white film photos of landscapes and nature trying to capture emotions in lonely places. In 2009 I started taking self-portraits, I had a lot of spare time but I wasn’t brave enough to ask people to model for me. My face was always obscured in the photographs I took and it became my obsession to portray a soul of a person, their emotions, anxiety, loneliness without showing their face. In December 2011 I finally broke out of my shell and began working with models. This summer has been the most prolific time for me, I’m living and breathing photography.

all photographs by Magdalena Lutek.

Comments { 22 }

Isabelle Bertolini

Wednesday 5 September, 2012 / Food, Photography / Comments { 11 }

now, i know that people love to make fun of the many, many food photos you see on Instagram these days – but i for one love them. they are usually the number 1 photo that i tend to favourite, especially when the food in question involves the simple and best things in life – bread, butter and cheese.

so i was browsing through a flickr group called Food + Film when i realised that all the pictures i really loved, and clicked through to, were taken by photographer Isabelle Bertolini. based in paris, Isabelle takes most of her photos with a variety of film cameras (see her blog for more of her work and a list of cameras in her kit). be sure to visit her flickr where you can browse through the rest of her food photos and another lovely set called simple things.

all photographs by Isabelle Bertonlini. click through for the original.

all photographs by Isabelle Bertonlini.

Comments { 11 }

New York in the 80s

Thursday 23 August, 2012 / Photography, Vintage / Comments { 33 }

i still haven’t been to new york. right now it’s a matter of saving saving saving so i can get there one day. every time i’m tempted by a beautiful piece of furniture or a new jacket i think, must save for new york. in the meantime i’m living vicariously through other people’s new york related stories, photos, films… which is why i so enjoyed browsing through New York In the 80s, a collection of photographs by Steven Siegel.

I’ve been photographing the streets and subways of New York for the past 30 years. When young people today look at my shots from the 1980’s, they are aghast. To them, New York of the 1980’s is almost unrecognizable. And they are right.

that’s just an excerpt from Steven’s thoughts about this moment in time that he captured and so generously shared – read the rest here and check out the his other sets for more NY related photography.