Artist Interview: Nigel Shafran (Photographer)
*Click here to read in Japanese
First of all, the new book that was just published:"The Well"You've been working in the field of fashion photography for almost 30 years, and this is your 10th book, and the first to look back over that long period of work. How did you come to publish this book, and why did you choose now to publish a book of your commercial work?
I started shooting in the commercial field about 30 years ago, maybe 35 years ago. The idea for The Well came from the suggestion of the book's designer, Linda van Deursen. She is more than just a book designer, and she really pushed me well in the creation of this book. Because I always thought of my professional photography and my personal work as something separate, when I first heard about it, I thought, "I'll never let you do that while I'm still alive!" (laughs). But now that I've made this book, I can see it all as connected. I don't think that the photographs in this book are all so-called fashion photographs. As for the later works, they are commercial fashion photographs from recent years, but most of the earlier works were made as a reaction against the kind of fashion photography I used to work as an assistant in, and what I did when I was younger. Even if they are snapshots of people on the street, or works that can be connected to fashion photography and different styles, they are not necessarily photographing fashion models or people like that. So those two photographs are somehow connected.
- As you just said, this book is not just a collection of your work in the commercial field, but you can see in various ways your intention to connect your fashion photography with your photography as an artist. For example, this book was not published by a major publisher that produces retrospective catalogs, but by an independent publisher in London that produces more artistic art books."Loose Joints"And the fact that the photo you're using as the main visual for the book right now (before publication) is shot in the same composition as one of your best-known images, of your wife, Ruth, sitting in a chair in their kitchen, suggests that you intended to make that connection. It's interesting that you've only been conscious of this connection very recently.
Maybe one is a reaction against the other, or maybe they complement each other. Unless we are born into great wealth, we have to earn a living, and that is always a big problem. Some photographers can survive by teaching photography as a job, or if they are lucky, selling prints, while others make their own work while earning a living in a totally different job. I think it is more acceptable to work in the commercial field now than it was in the past, but because I am so involved in it, I am constantly challenged, if not problematic, by the industry, especially with how women are portrayed as part of the overconsumption.
- So is that why your fashion photos are not overly staged? I mean, I think you could stage them as fashion photos, separate from your personal work, but it's not so obvious on the surface, and they're unified with the same texture as your personal work.
Some of my recent photos are more planned, but I hope they don't look too staged. In my recent fashion shoots, I have a lot of ideas and drawings in my head, and I recreate them. I've also recently started thinking that if I'm lucky enough to have a large audience as a photographer, I might be able to incorporate my own thoughts on different subjects into my work. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's political, but it can be political in a very small way. I also try to photograph fashion models and subjects in a way that is neither objectified nor overly sexual.
Above: spread from "Ruthbook" (Self published, 1995) / Below: spread from "The Well" (Loose Joints, 2022)─ I understand. You self-published a collection of your work in 1995.RuthbookWith this, you began to focus more seriously on your artistic career. However, your earlier projects also seemed to have this personal perspective on your immediate environment and surroundings. You could have compiled your other projects into photobooks earlier, but why did you decide to publish this very personal body of work as your first book?
Maybe it was because it was the most emotional work I had done at the time, and because I thought we only live once. Maybe it was a kind of therapy. I think the most important photos in life are snapshots of your family. In a way, I consider myself a very good professional family photographer. I'm very happy to be that. Or a snapshot photographer with a large format camera - that's a good phrase, I like it (laughs). I think I said it before, but for me it's important to see what's in front of me and to see it as clearly as possible. It's not always easy.
--Do you think that presenting such personal photographs as works of art, or the fact that they were personal, had any critical significance at the time?
I don't know. That's what I do. I often tell my students, "Just do it." Take a photo from time to time, edit it, use it, publish it, or not. If you don't do anything, nothing will come out. I think it's very simple. Sometimes you spend time thinking about things, sometimes you work, sometimes you do your daily work. Sometimes you look at different works, sometimes you look at paintings by old masters, sometimes you look at receipts and do calculations. So I don't know how to answer that. Maybe it was effective at that time, maybe it wasn't. I don't want to harden my image by talking too much about my work. I'm more like, how should I put it... there are other people whose job is to talk about work. Curators are the ones who can see what is interesting now, and they look from the past to the present and choose what is interesting. But I think I like the idea of letting my work affect people and let it be free. I like my work to exist like that, with so many pictures that are flooding the world these days.
─Since "Ruthbook," you have continued to use books as an important form of artwork to this day. While you also present your work in exhibitions and other formats, what is it about the book format that attracts you so much?
I think photo books are the most effective way to show your photos. You can control the way your work looks through sequencing and editing. They don't require electricity like laptops, and they are affordable. You can also choose when to show them. So you don't have to go to the trouble of having an exhibition. Once an exhibition is over, you can't see it again. And it takes a lot of energy to hold an exhibition, and once it's over, it's gone. The difference is also when you see your photos in a book and when you see them on a screen. I think the computer screen is a place to see your work, but it's not my favorite place to see my photos. A photo book is a three-dimensional object that you can actually hold in your hands, own, like or dislike.It also feels like there is a slower flow of time. I feel like I can concentrate better with a book than with a screen, and I don't think I've ever looked at a photo on a screen for a long time. I don't know why, it might be a little different, but I think it's probably because we're all so used to using machines so quickly. Also, I'm a bit of a control freak. With a photo book, I have control over everything, from the materials to the printing to the sequence, and they're all equally important in the making of the work.
Is that also why you prefer self-publishing?
Yes, I know. But when I do it myself, something always goes wrong (laughs). That being said, the only times I've self-published a book...
-- (Shows Shafran's self-published collection on screen)
Where did you get that book?
--Ruthbook? I think I bought it on eBay some time ago.
The book was originally priced at £7.50. I remember riding my bike around to bookshops selling it. I spent all my money on good paper. And on the cover... Oh! Look at the title.
--The titles on the covers of each book are written by your own hand.
Yes, I titled them all with one pencil. I think I still have that 4B pencil somewhere in the darkroom. The title is one word, "Ruthbook," for some reason. I don't know why I made it one word. I can still write it exactly like that. I remember being very particular about every single letter. "Book" is a combination of a big zero and a little zero...I wonder why. Maybe it was a kind of reaction to other work I was seeing at the time. I don't know what I'm doing half the time. I don't know what I'm doing 90% of the time.
--And you find out later.
Probably. There is no master plan for production.
Spread from "Ruthbook" (Self published, 1995)─ Tell me a bit more about the sequence. In a past interview, you described the sequence as something like a "wave of emotion." How did you become aware of the effect that the arrangement of the photographs creates? Did you develop it in the process of composing photographs for magazines?
I try not to think too much about it either. I'm much more comfortable with making decisions while looking at a sequence I've put together than with making decisions based on ideas. So it's not about thinking about it, I just put the pictures in the movement and decide if it works. Some people I know like to do it while watching TV (laughs). I also showed my dummy books to friends and people I respect and checked their reaction to see if the sequence worked. If they had the same reaction as I did when I saw it, then it probably worked. I guess I want people to have an emotional reaction, I don't know if reaction is the right word, but the same reaction I had. I hope that what I felt will translate well to other people. There may be a big pause, a big change, or something else, but I'm not sure. Again, this is something I've been doing for a long time. When I edit a new piece, it's just whether it feels good or not. I don't want to be robotic and think about things by rules when it comes to production. Some people are very savvy and very knowledgeable about photography, but I don't want my work to be clever. I'm not interested in being clever at all, and if I think something is working too well, I'll go in the opposite direction and do something weird. I don't know what that means, but I want to give people a reaction, and if that reaction is the same as my reaction, then it's worked for me.
─ So for you, photography is not just a way of communicating with the subject, but also with the viewer.
Probably, it's just how I communicate.
From a sequence standpoint, IDark RoomsI find this particularly interesting.
Whether or not the book is a bestseller, I love it. Do you know what the cover of the book was originally going to look like? (Removing dust cover) A stairway to heaven. I made this drawing here. It's based on the poster for the 1946 film, "A Matter of Life and Death." I'm very proud of making this book.
- There is something positive about the end of the book. I think these feelings are largely influenced by the two sequences you bring into the book. One is the sequence of each photo for each project, and the other is a symphonic sequence given to the five projects themselves.
In this book, everything moves forward. Food and escalators, which are symbols of us as people and modern society, where food literally becomes a part of us. And the last shop you want to visit is a care store, with all the things you need as you approach the end of your life. The final photo of the container marks the end of the package - a kind of very dark final checkout. A similar structure to this book was published in 2004."Edited Photographs"But we tried. There is a sense of a continuity in the photographs in this book from beginning to end. In Dark Rooms, as you say, we included photographs of our lives and separations at key points in order to avoid making it too much of a photographic "story." We wanted to include our family in the photographs.
Spreads from "Dark Rooms" (MACK, 2016)-- So how long does it take to create one piece? Some pieces, like the escalator series included in "Dark Rooms," seem to have been completed in just a few takes.
The escalator series was an exception where I was totally absorbed in photography. One time I borrowed a digital camera from photographer Tyrone Lebon. I was a total amateur when it came to digital cameras, but my film camera was a little too slow to photograph that place. I happened to come across the escalator scene at the time and thought it was a great place. First of all, there are very few places in London that don't have advertisements in the background. And there aren't many similar places that are lit by natural light. Thirdly, the background has a grid pattern like graph paper. It reminds me of the work of Eadweard Muybridge. Fourthly, there was a place where I could stand in the middle, which was just right for shooting. And fifthly...
--It seems like there are even more to come! (laughs)
For me, it was the perfect photography studio.Modernity, modern clothes, modern fashion, passing through that perfect studio one after another. That's why I had such a strong energy of "I have to do this now". So I took a lot of photos, trying different things, for a week or two. And then I never did it again. Of course, some of the works take longer. For example, the series of dishes I made in 2000 took a whole year. Sometimes I feel more motivated after a long time, and sometimes I lose interest.
Spread from "Dark Rooms" (MACK, 2016)─ I see. In 2018 you held a solo exhibition that included part of your sketchbooks, but do you still make notebooks?
Yes, I still do it a lot. And I call it a workbook. Especially when I use a digital camera, which is very easy and wonderful, I don't know what to do with it at first, so I print out the pictures on A4 size paper, and then print them out small like this. I paste them in my workbook or put them in a box file. The pictures I take with my digital camera are more varied, like something I see on the street, or my son eating a sandwich -- I don't take pictures of myself eating a sandwich. Even when I'm doing my son's homework, I'll take pictures. And I paste them in my notebook as memories. For my own memories. I don't know what to do with them. Maybe I'll find a reason to do something with them, or incorporate them into something that I can't imagine right now. I don't even know why I take pictures at this point.
--Looking at this notebook, it's clear that your keen eye for everyday things is connected to each of the projects that were born from those fragments.
I've been a commercial photographer for many years, and I've seen a lot of excess, luxury, and expensive things in that industry. I don't know how impressed I am with them. I love buying boots, and when I wear out my old ones and I really need new ones, I feel so happy. It's like, "Yes!" (laughs). But that one pair is enough. If I bought three extra pairs, I would feel half as happy. In a way, it loses value. I don't really like to talk about everyday things because I've said it a thousand times, but I think it's important to be aware of what is in front of you, and what you have now, not what you don't have. The world and advertising today is trying to get us to have things that we don't have yet, but I want to be happy with what's around me... what would be another word for it? I'm not sure, but I want to be at peace with what I have now. I'm not sure if peace is the right word. I try not to be too eloquent. There's a bit of a tension between my commercial work and my personal work, and they complement each other, which isn't all bad, and I probably couldn't do without one.
--What is interesting about commercial work that has such connections and is different from personal work?
I feel really lucky to be able to shoot for American Vogue. So many people see my work there. I feel really lucky to have been given such a stage to share my work. I don't let the publication edit the work I want to use or the photos I choose. So I hope that what is published in the paper reflects what I originally intended to portray. The photos I present there are also never stereotypical and overly sexualized images. And hopefully, the women I show are interesting and have character, because they are not objects. But at the same time, the point is that commercial photography is about selling crap. Culturally, fashion photography is interesting. For example, Irwin Blumenfeld and Irving Penn are great photographs, and their photographs are certainly interesting images of their time. Those are the names that come to mind right now, and there are many other great photographers, but I don't know if it's right to call them just "fashion photographers." They do personal work outside of their jobs, and like me, they needed to know what they were interested in. Even if they really wanted to be artists, they also needed to earn a living, so it's hard to say. Or... What was the original question?
What do you find interesting about fashion photography?
Ah! I've gotten off topic. Fashion photography is definitely a completely different thing from my personal work, something I don't usually do. So maybe I didn't want to do fashion photography in the same style as my personal work. But as I said at the beginning, I now see the connection with elements like composition and lighting. I feel that lighting is a big part of my work. How a subject is lit sometimes says a lot about the subject. If it wasn't for a commercial magazine, I wouldn't just suddenly dress Ruth up as a snail or a gas station worker. It's fun as long as it's not rude or disrespectful.
Above: spread from "Dark Rooms" (MACK, 2016) / Below: spread from "The Well" (Loose Joints, 2022)I know I've said this already, but I often don't know what I'm saying. But I like that feeling quite a bit. I come up with a drawing, I draw it, and then suddenly I stop at a certain point. Let's draw a woman holding 20 bags of chips. And then the photo has to be accurate to that image. Do you see this photo of the cash register? And here is Bella, a fashion model, with a bag of chips on her head. With this photo, maybe it was this unexpected connection between personal work and fashion photography. As always, I don't know if I was conscious of it or if it's connected. I don't like to overthink it. Again, I think if I think too deeply and be too careful, I might kill the idea. So I prefer to just write down the idea and do it right away. Like, I've never seen that image before, so I want to try it.
This is just a thought that just occurred to me, but I think I like to go with the flow of ideas like that. And I don't want to stop the flow. Sometimes something comes out of my head, and I think about it and analyze it. I try to test it in a commercial fashion job. I think that's a lot more thoughtful than just thinking about it. An idea pops out, I try it out, and of course it may or may not work. But with my other personal work, I don't stage it like a commercial photo, and I never have. I look back on my photos as if I was doing accounting.Oh, here is the history of my life, all those little bits and pieces of history that I could throw away with a pile of receipts. Where I went, what I ate, who I was with, what I bought, all those little bits that make up who I am. I like that about my personal work. ...Oops, that's an exaggeration again (laughs).
(Interviewed on April 20, 2022 by Yukihito Kono)
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Nigel Shafran
Born in England in 1964. Since the late 1980s, he has worked alongside Jurgen Teller, Corinne Day, David Sims and others for London-based fashion and culture magazines such as iD, The Face and Dazed & Confused, garnering attention as a photographer of the next generation. In 1995, he self-published his collection of work, Ruthbook, which not only marked the start of his career as a photographer, but also made a deep mark in the history of photobooks as a masterpiece on the subject of relationships with partners. His playful photographs, with their sharp eye for things that we might easily overlook in our daily lives, have won him many fans as a photographer and fashion photographer.
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