Pushing the boundaries of colour photography.
The story of colour in photography is a fascinating one. Originally seen as crass and unsophisticated by the black-and-white-shooting elite, perceptions slowly changed thanks to the work of a few brave and hardy pioneers, pushing against the trend of the time. Nowadays, many photographers work in colour by default rather than design – the decision to shoot in black and white is a conscious one, and if it hasn’t been made then colour is the knock-on result. It’s therefore striking when a contemporary photographer puts colour at the heart of their work – using it in creative ways, or as an central part of the messages they’re trying to put across.
William Eggleston (1939, United States)
No list would be complete without William Eggleston, referred to by some as the ‘Godfather of Colour’ and a pivotal figure in helping turn colour photography into a legitimate artistic medium. He first started experimenting with colour negative film in the mid-1960s – something that until then had been seen as crass and clichéd, more the medium of the advertising world than a serious artist. He slowly changed that perception, and yet like all pioneers had his fair share of detractors – one critic scathingly described his 1976 MoMA retrospective as “perfectly bad, perhaps… perfectly boring, certainly”.
You have to understand the world in which he created them. Photography at the time was seen as an art form that needed a subject matter, a message, a story – neatly framed for the viewer to digest. His work turned that notion on its head – his subjects were mundane and barely subjects at all, often set at uncustomary angles, with no hint of an idiosyncratic character, or a ‘decisive moment’ for which Cartier-Bresson was busy making his name. He framed the banal, and found beauty in it, celebrating the ordinary through his fascinating colour combinations and ‘magic hour lighting’. You need to slow yourself down when you look at his work – taking notice of the form and tight framing, the colour combinations and how they play against the shadows. His talent slowly reveals itself in each of his images.
Mona Kuhn (1941, Germany)
“I always start a new series quite simply by imaging colors first. Once I have a palette in mind, I then start creating a vocabulary around it. My creative process is mostly intuitive. I am quite comfortable in letting my curiosity guide me. I prefer to tap into what I don’t know, and go from there. Photography has always worked for me as a form of visual poetry”.
It’s quite an unusual approach when you think about it. Many photographers work with the colours they have, and others choose colours to match the mood or message they’re trying to convey, but few actually start with the colours.
It’s an approach that works beautifully. As a viewer I’m always struck by the gorgeous, soft tones of her images, before absorbing the models and their surroundings. Her gift, in my view, is the way in which she can elegantly balance colour, composition, object and texture, resulting in images you feel as much as you view.
Miles Aldridge (1964, UK)
He creates lurid, technicolour worlds and populates them with glamorous, beautiful women. His vivid, psychedelic tones however belie a dark undercurrent to his work. The lurid colours create a world that’s just too perfect to quite believe, and the women’s vacant stares echo that, building a sense of disturbance and neurosis. Like the world inhabited by the Stepford Wives, all is not quite what it seems.
For me, the power of his images is the way in which he subverts the world of fashion photography and advertising. He takes that industry, that world of flawless, happy people with their perfect lives and perfect products, and calls them out on it. He plays with the idea that perfection leads to insanity, and his use of candy colours is absolutely central to that.
