LO OP Spring 2016 vol./1
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DARK FANTASY
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im Walker’s photographs have entranced the readers of Vogue, month by month, for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. After concentrating on photographic stills for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film.Born in England in 1970, Walker’s interest in photography began at the Condé Nast library in London where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archive for a year before university. After a three-year BA Honors degree in Photography at Exeter College of Art, Walker was awarded third prize as The Independent Young Photographer Of The Year. Upon graduation in 1994, Walker worked as a freelance photographic assistant in London before moving to New York City as a full time assistant to Richard Avedon. When he returned to England, he initially concentrated on portrait and documentary work for British newspapers. At the age of 25 he shot his first fashion story for Vogue, and has photographed for the British, Italian, and American editions, as well as W Magazine and LOVE Magazine ever since. Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’ published by teNeues. In 2010 Walker’s first short film, ‘The Lost Explorer’ was premiered at Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and went on to win best short film at the Chicago United Film Festival, 2011.2012 saw the opening of Walker’s ‘Story Teller’ photographic exhibition at Somerset House, London. The exhibition coincided with the publication of his book, ‘Story Teller’ published by Thames and Hudson. In a 2013 collaboration with Lawrence Mynott and Kit Hesketh-Harvey, he also released The Granny Alphabet, a unique collection of portraiture and illustration celebrating grandmothers.
‘I’m not so motivated by fashion and brands,’ explains Tim Walker – one of the world’s leading fashion photographers. Given that Walker’s work is most frequently found between the glossy covers of highend fashion magazines – Love, i-D and of course the myriad international imprints of Vogue, to name but a few – this statement makes for an interesting juxtaposition. The incongruence is only exacerbated in context of our meeting at Somerset House to mark the opening of his Mulberry-sponsored exhibition (and recently published book) Story Teller. Collating the dramatic dreamscapes of Walker’s photographs, not just in the large format pictorial form to which photography is so often consigned in gallery spaces but rather in an immersive and tactile pseudo-reality enabled in part by the inclusion of the props and design that set them apart, Story Teller is Walker in microcosm: a bridge between two worlds. The transcendence of Walker’s work – which cannot be confined to, or labeled solely as a product of the fashion industry – is marked by its appreciation in the wider
Chaos makes the picture
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Loop magazine
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nterested in who’ll I’m more intereste hat I want to do,’ h et me do what I w k that I’ve always says. ‘I think that I shion industry as used the fashion i to fund and supp mechanism to fun nd if they let me a my work; and if th py then that’s fine hey’re happy then 6
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Tim Walker’s photographs have entranced the readers month by month, for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. After concentrating on photographic stills for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film.Born in England in 1970, Walker’s interest in photography began at the Condé Nast library in London where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archive for a year before university. After a three-year BA Honors degree in Photography at Exeter College of Art, Walker was awarded third prize as The Independent Young Photographer Of The Year.Upon graduation in 1994, Walker worked as a freelance photographic assistant in London before moving to New York City as a full time assistant to Richard Avedon. When he returned to England, he initially concentrated on portrait and documentary work for British newspapers. At the age of 25 he shot his first fashion story for Vogue, and has photographed for the British, Italian, and American editions, as well as W. his first fashion story for Vogue, and has photographed for the British, Italian, and American editions, as well as W Magazine and LOVE Magazine ever since.Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’ published by teNeues. “Clothes essentially can be so boring. To take clothes on people and put them with location brings fashion alive,” noted Walker. And so there’s more than an element of surprise and coincidence in the final shoots coming together - dependent on everything from the weather and the quirks of the location to all the clothing possibilities in those 25 suitcases. For instance it was the muddy downpour that brought those Glastonbury photographs to life in 2007. “The heavens opened and we were up to our necks in mud but that has become one of my favourite shoots of all time,” recalled Phelan. And at times like that, it’s important to have the right team around you. “You need to go with that person that has that adventurer spirit,” she said.And a sense of spirit is key for Walker. “I’m trying to make her [the model] belong to the world,” he said, referring specifically to a shoot with Lily Cole in India - she perched up a winding staircase in a delicately-falling-apart palace, her blue trailing gown matching that of the gently decrepit walls that framed. Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’.
Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’ published by teNeues. In 2010 Walker’s first short film, ‘The Lost Explorer’ was premiered at Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and went on to win best short film at the Chicago United Film Festival, 2011.2012 saw the opening of Walker’s ‘Story Teller’ photographic exhibition at Somerset House, London. The exhibition coincided with the publication of his book, ‘Story Teller’ published by Thames and Hudson. In a 2013 collaboration with Lawrence Mynott and Kit Hesketh-Harvey, he also released The Granny Alphabet, a unique collection of portraiture and illustration celebrating grandmothers. Walker received the ‘Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator’ from The British Fashion Council in 2008 as well as the Infinity Award from The International Center of Photography in 2009. In 2012 Walker received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society.The Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London include Walker’s photographs in their permanent collections. Tim lives in London.And that may be why, as he stood gazing seaward during a shoot last year on the northern coast of England, he was all ears when Kristen McMenamy, “Tim will send me a picture on his phone of a man and an eagle on a mountain saying ‘Mongolia’ - and that’s how it starts,” said Phelan of where the quite literal fashion journey begins. “That’s what brings fashion alive, it’s about dreaming, to make that dream a thing, it’s very exciting, one of the most exciting aspects of being a photographer,” added Walker. Another is its spontaneity. While in the aforementioned Mongolia in 2011 Walker saw a herd of yaks and a seed was sown. “Kate, what do we have that could work with a yak?” was the question on his mind - and suddenly a coat was being turned upside down, legs being put through arm holes instead, to go with the yak. And not just any yak - it had to be the white yak. And so that became the challenge, and consequently that became the picture Tim Walker’s photographs have entranced the readers of Vogue, month by month, for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. After concentrating on photographic stills for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film.
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Loop magazine
Tim Walker is a listener, taking in conversational cues and stray bits of wisdom with a mind that whirs incessantly, much like the camera he carries wherever he goes...
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His shoots don’t start with the clothes,
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Loop magazine
s,
they start with a story. 11
Loop magazine
T
im Walker’s photographs have entranced the readers of Vogue, month by month, for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. After concentrating on photographic stills for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film.Born in England in 1970, Walker’s interest in photography began at the Condé Nast library in London where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archive for a year before university. After a three-year BA Honors degree in Photography at Exeter College of Art, Walker was awarded third prize as The Independent Young Photographer Of The Year. Upon graduation in 1994, Walker worked as a freelance photographic assistant in London before moving to New York City as a full time assistant to Richard Avedon. When he returned to England, he initially concentrated on portrait and documentary work for British newspapers. At the age of 25 he shot his first fashion story for Vogue, and has photographed for the British, Italian, and American editions, as well as W Magazine and LOVE Magazine ever since. Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’ published by teNeues. In 2010 Walker’s first short film, ‘The Lost Explorer’ was premiered at Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and went on to win best short film at the Chicago United Film Festival, 2011.2012 saw the opening of Walker’s ‘Story Teller’ photographic exhibition at Somerset House, London. The exhibition coincided with the publication of his book, ‘Story Teller’ published by Thames and Hudson. In a 2013 collaboration with Lawrence Mynott and Kit Hesketh-Harvey, he also released The Granny Alphabet, a unique collection of portraiture and illustration celebrating grandmothers.
DARK FANTASY
2
Chaos makes the picture
3
4
Loop magazine
Tim Walker’s photographs have entranced the readers month by month, for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. After concentrating on photographic stills for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film.Born in England in 1970, Walker’s interest in photography began at the Condé Nast library in London where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archive for a year before university. After a three-year BA Honors degree in Photography at Exeter College of Art, Walker was awarded third prize as The Independent Young Photographer Of The Year.Upon graduation in 1994, Walker worked as a freelance photographic assistant in London before moving to New York City as a full time assistant to Richard Avedon. When he returned to England, he initially concentrated on portrait and documentary work for British newspapers. At the age of 25 he shot his first fashion story for Vogue, and has photographed for the British, Italian, and American editions, as well as W. his first fashion story for Vogue, and has photographed for the British, Italian, and American editions, as well as W Magazine and LOVE Magazine ever since.Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’ published by teNeues. “Clothes essentially can be so boring. To take clothes on people and put them with location brings fashion alive,” noted Walker. And so there’s more than an element of surprise and coincidence in the final shoots coming together - dependent on everything from the weather and the quirks of the location to all the clothing possibilities in those 25 suitcases. For instance it was the muddy downpour that brought those Glastonbury photographs to life in 2007. “The heavens opened and we were up to our necks in mud but that has become one of my favourite shoots of all time,” recalled Phelan. And at times like that, it’s important to have the right team around you. “You need to go with that person that has that adventurer spirit,” she said.And a sense of spirit is key for Walker. “I’m trying to make her [the model] belong to the world,” he said, referring specifically to a shoot with Lily Cole in India - she perched up a winding staircase in a delicately-falling-apart palace, her blue trailing gown matching that of the gently decrepit walls that framed. Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’.
‘I’m not so motivated by fashion and brands,’ explains Tim Walker – one of the world’s leading fashion photographers. Given that Walker’s work is most frequently found between the glossy covers of highend fashion magazines – Love, i-D and of course the myriad international imprints of Vogue, to name but a few – this statement makes for an interesting juxtaposition. The incongruence is only exacerbated in context of our meeting at Somerset House to mark the opening of his Mulberry-sponsored exhibition (and recently published book) Story Teller. Collating the dramatic dreamscapes of Walker’s photographs, not just in the large format pictorial form to which photography is so often consigned in gallery spaces but rather in an immersive and tactile pseudo-reality enabled in part by the inclusion of the props and design that set them apart, Story Teller is Walker in microcosm: a bridge between two worlds. The transcendence of Walker’s work – which cannot be confined to, or labeled solely as a product of the fashion industry – is marked by its appreciation in the wider
His shoots don’t start with the clothes,
Tim Walker is a listener, taking in conversational cues and stray bits of wisdom with a mind that whirs incessantly, much like the camera he carries wherever he goes...
Walker staged his first major exhibition at the Design Museum, London in 2008. This coincided with the publication of his book ‘Pictures’ published by teNeues. In 2010 Walker’s first short film, ‘The Lost Explorer’ was premiered at Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and went on to win best short film at the Chicago United Film Festival, 2011.2012 saw the opening of Walker’s ‘Story Teller’ photographic exhibition at Somerset House, London. The exhibition coincided with the publication of his book, ‘Story Teller’ published by Thames and Hudson. In a 2013 collaboration with Lawrence Mynott and Kit Hesketh-Harvey, he also released The Granny Alphabet, a unique collection of portraiture and illustration celebrating grandmothers. Walker received the ‘Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator’ from The British Fashion Council in 2008 as well as the Infinity Award from The International Center of Photography in 2009. In 2012 Walker received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society.The Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London include Walker’s photographs in their permanent collections. Tim lives in London.And that may be why, as he stood gazing seaward during a shoot last year on the northern coast of England, he was all ears when Kristen McMenamy, “Tim will send me a picture on his phone of a man and an eagle on a mountain saying ‘Mongolia’ - and that’s how it starts,” said Phelan of where the quite literal fashion journey begins. “That’s what brings fashion alive, it’s about dreaming, to make that dream a thing, it’s very exciting, one of the most exciting aspects of being a photographer,” added Walker. Another is its spontaneity. While in the aforementioned Mongolia in 2011 Walker saw a herd of yaks and a seed was sown. “Kate, what do we have that could work with a yak?” was the question on his mind - and suddenly a coat was being turned upside down, legs being put through arm holes instead, to go with the yak. And not just any yak - it had to be the white yak. And so that became the challenge, and consequently that became the picture Tim Walker’s photographs have entranced the readers of Vogue, month by month, for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. After concentrating on photographic stills for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film.
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‘I’m more interested in who’ll ‘I’m more let me do what I wantinterested to do,’ he in who’ll letthat me do I want to do,’ he says. ‘I think I’vewhat always says. ‘Iindustry think that used the fashion asI’ve a always the and fashion industry as a mechanismused to fund support mechanism fund my work; and if they lettome andand support my then work;that’s and iffine.’ they let me and they’re happy they’re happy then that’s fine.’ Loop magazine
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Loop magazine designed by Alex Wieselman spring 2016 printed at Jayhawk Ink on #20 paper Fonts: Didot, Helvetica, Arial Black Resources: vogue.co.uk/person/tim-walker, theguardian.com/fashion/2013, timwalkerphotography.com/
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