Guy Bourdin : Image Maker
I’ve been entranced by Guy Bourdin’s photography simply because his work seems to resonate immediately and simultaneously as both fashion and image. His work stands the test of time and his exhibition brings home how clear his vision was.
The gritty landscapes, backdrops to his wonderful fashion imagery, are sweeping and lit up quite synthetically at times with – Taking it all in , I realise his work feels like the result of an unlikely collaboration between Andreas Gursky, Nick Knight and Alfred Hitchcock : bleak, lush and intriguing all at the same time. The images are even more impressive given these surreal photographs were all taken years before computers let us manipulate images.
Guy was a meticulous draftsman, which you can see from his sketchbooks and also paintings – and used composition to great effect, with always the notion of something happening beyond the frame. Such was his unique vision that Paris Vogue editor Francine Crescent allowed him complete editorial freedom to edit and layout his own imagery in the magazine from 1968 to 1987 -only he and Helmut Newton had that control over their photography at the magazine.
His use of film similarly was ground breaking – watching them flicker on a loop in large scale reminded me how much he has continued to influence fashion and film today.
At Somerset House till 15th March 2, 2015