03.02.11
Profile of a photographer: Russell James
Russell James not only shoots the Victoria’s Secret campaigns, he is also one of the world’s leading fashion and portrait photographers, whose images of women are in huge commercial demand. Even though he started out as a factory worker, followed by a brief stint in the police force, he’s now in a position of creative influence. Cass Chapman spoke to him in New York to talk about his career, and how he feels about his images of women, created specifically for the female marketplace.
Russell James makes sure, before I get off the telephone, that I know that he was recently inducted into the ‘Fashion!’ exhibition at Stockholm’s Fotografiska Museum. “It originated out of Berlin,” he tells me. “It’s a study of fashion since the 1920s and it goes in decades. Ten of my images were just taken in of Scarlett Johansson and others – I am extremely proud of that.” This is as close as James gets to boasting. Despite international success as a fashion photographer, he chats along with an ever-stronger Australian accent about his career, with absolute nonchalance. That’s not to say he isn’t grateful for his success,or unaware of how well he has done; he just has both feet very firmly on the ground.
“I live upstate in Woodstock, New York state, but Manhattan is, for all intents and purposes, the centre of my photographic universe,” he divulges. But he admits to wishing he could spend more time in Europe than he does – which is unsurprising, as London, Paris and Milan were all homes in his early days as a photographer. Today, he works between both continents, regularly shooting for Victoria’s Secret, W magazine and Vogue, to name just a few. Click on his website and the list of his celebrity sitters reads like a Hollywood call sheet: Kate Bosworth and Kristin Davis, Eva Mendes and Eva Herzigova, they are all there – and then some. But how did a young kid from Western Australia, who worked in a factory before joining the police force, end up with such an enviable career?
“I was a lost, wandering soul and paid no attention in school,” James admits. “I left very early at 14 years of age, so I was only eligible for factory line work. I ended up making rubbish bins on an assembly line. It was really good motivation because I couldn’t think of anything I hated more.” He may have hated it, but from there he went on to become a metal worker. “I then trained dogs and found I loved them. So much so that I shockingly joined the police force in Australia, as I found out that I could get paid to work with dogs. But I forgot to check if they actually had a dog slot in the police force when I went in and they didn’t.” So he didn’t work with dogs, but he did spend five years working in tactical response groups and protective services, which he admits was his first experience with photography and filming. “We did surveillance on people. It was bizarre, but it was my first taster.”
He was enticed away from Australia by a Japanese businessman who offered him good money to ‘work in fashion’. As a result, he planned a trip to Tokyo – though he admits now that he really only holidayed “because I was so ashamed that I was going to do something like that.” Fate seemed to take a hand, however, as from Tokyo he went on to Germany, where he met a Swedish girl who approached him with the idea of buying a Swedish modelling agency, which he did. “She ran it and I just worked on some of the strategic ideas but, through the agency, I met photographers – people like Richard Avedon, who was kind enough to let me into his lab in New York for a couple of days.” This period was an epiphany for James. “I was 29 then and I’m 47 now, so I was a pretty late bloomer.”
Maybe so, but James quickly made up for lost time. After shooting for Vogue Australia and Elle UK, while simultaneously shooting lots of portrait work, James got what he reflects upon as his ‘break’. It was 1996, and two highly-sought-after jobs were presented to him at once: the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine and a fashion shoot for W magazine. “I was booked that same week to do one of the most commercial projects in history, which was shooting the cover of Sports Illustrated.” Not only was it the coveted SI cover, it was also the first cover to feature an African-American model – in this case, Tyra Banks. James muses that, “America was going through a really transitional time, and it was a very controversial publishing decision. So I did a really artistic, high-fashion project for W, balanced off by a super-commercial project for SI, with their highest ever circulation cover.” From there, “the Ralph Laurens and the Burberrys and a lot of other magazines started to hire me.”
James admits that the combination of shooting Sports Illustrated and W was nerve-racking: “For W, I was particularly terrified, because at that time it was the most legitimate fashion magazine in the market, and had really broken away and added a new photographic platform. I was looking at all these big names and wondering how the hell I would fare.” He did well, however, for a young man with no formal training.
So how did he learn the trade with no school qualifications and an employment history with the Western Australian police force? “For me it was the school of life. I probably took twice as long as I needed, because I went through all the hoops. I would assist people anywhere I could. I built my own little lab and made a hell of a lot of mistakes.” He recalls his ‘real training’ as the time he spent under a creative director. “A guy called David Litman played a very big creative presence in New York. He repositioned Burberry for example, and he basically took me under his wing.” Litman was frank with James. “He said to me, ‘You can have a career trying to follow the fashion magazines every month, and think that that is art, or I can teach you the right way’. So he sat me down every day after work, and we would look through old books – from Irving Penn to William Klein.” Litman’s advice was clear. “He said, ‘Forget the mags and the trends; look at the shades and the light and the concepts, because the clothing will change, but this kind of quality won’t. Learn from the masters and find your own style’.”
James applauds Litman for giving him his ‘master’s education’. “He realigned my thinking, which actually led me to art photography, and from there to fashion photography.” Leapfrogging from studying to shooting occurred due to James’s ‘very simple plan’. After shooting endlessly, then trying to get work with magazines, he found nothing was happening. “What I did find, however, was that if I went in with a concept and said, ‘Look, I’m going to the Northwest of Australia. I’m taking these two models. If you give me the clothes and the page budget, I will combine them and do this story for you’. I would get shots funded and placed.”
This continued until, “I was working for magazines, from Elle Sweden to Vogue Australia. I didn’t realise it was a good idea at the time, but it was the only way I could get things funded.” From that point onwards, work flowed in and, over the ensuing years, James’s images became instantly recognisable. In his campaigns for Victoria’s Secret there is a sophisticated approach to the way in which he shoots nude and semi-clad models lounging seductively. Yet, there is no need for feminist issues and objections to be raised where James is concerned; his images are undeniably sexy, but in no way sexist. A far cry from being derogatory, they celebrate the female form, rather than exploit it; which is essential, considering the markets he works in promote products for women.
How does he strike such a balance? He readily admits: “I have to remind myself not to get driven by the testosterone part of what I do.” And the fact that he has two daughters “has a big impact on the way I look at things.” James explains: “From a purely commercial aspect there are two ways you can ride. One is the men’s magazine point of view, which is selling women to men. But the majority of business is women selling to women. If it has a woman in it, it is already appealing to men – I don’t have to do a thing. But it’s a different thing appealing to women, because they don’t want to be offended.” He finds that female audiences are “much more critical and there are more sideroads of sensitivity. From a personal level, I wouldn’t want to talk anyone into doing something vulgar – that has become a very legitimate part of my brand and my work. I really try to partner with the girl and make it something she is comfortable with and engaged in, that she won’t regret 10 years from now.”
James talks a lot about branding and marketing, which comes as no surprise considering his very large involvement with numerous global brands – particularly Victoria’s Secret. I ask him if he gets total freedom on shoots and, again, he talks about brand management and a sense of partnership. “I’ve just finished a meeting with the president of Victoria’s Secret, in which we talked about the overall concept for their upcoming swim season. So, instead of coming in after they’ve thought it all through and telling me to go to Saint-Tropez and shoot in such a way, we now partner from a brand perspective.” Even when the work James shoots isn’t for advertisements, he feels a sense of partnership with his clients. “Especially with artists – whether it be Fergie [singer with the Black Eyed Peas] or Faith Hill. When you meet them they are young and want to look a certain way. But as they move along, they ask for my thoughts, so partnership and brand consultancy develop.”
James may be renowned for his shots of sultry supermodels in silk, but he also does a lot of landscape work. He never understood why he should have to ‘choose a lane’ as a photographer and, as such, has created a diverse portfolio of work. He admits that when he first began, “I couldn’t say I loved shooting nudes of women over shooting a flower, or over shooting a still life of a shoe. I just really loved photography, but was always asked, ‘Are you going to be a landscape guy? Are you going to be a beauty guy? Decide what you are going to be, otherwise we can’t sell you’.”
James emphasises the importance of having a good agent – especially early in one’s career – but admits: “I look at Bruce Weber or Patrick Demarchelier. Okay, they are known for a certain style, but they do a lot of other things besides just shooting what we think they shoot. So, I finally got an agent who represented Patrick Demarchelier and I became their second photographer. The way landscape plays into what I do? If I see a landscape I’ll shoot it; even if I’m on a beauty job. I get so much inspiration from that. My art or my campaigns will often end up being a combination of an image and a still life or a landscape, because I think it is a really great emotive way to connect.”
While James may often be found shooting some of the world’s most beautiful women on exotic Caribbean islands, he keeps his finger firmly on the pulse of social, economic and environmental issues, with projects supported through his creative work. He supports the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, based in Australia, and in 2009 he launched an art project called ‘Nomad Two Worlds’, which focuses on a big issue in his native country – aboriginal reconciliation. “If I was asked to donate images or support something, I always did. But now I’ve taken things on much more personally. I’ve realised that so much of what we do when working with nudity and beauty and all those things is an incredibly powerful PR machine that you can harness to raise awareness about women’s health, for example.” As such, his latest project brings together nudity and charity in just that way.
His newly-released book, V2, was born of a shoot on Richard Branson’s Necker Island. “It’s just nudes of those who I think are the next most influential women in the world of beauty,” says James. “I was shooting swimwear and I turned to Richard [Branson] and the president of Victoria’s Secret, and I said, ‘I’ve got to shoot a book, this place is ridiculously beautiful’.” Models such as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Miranda Kerr grace the pages; all of whom James reached out to. “I said to them, ‘Let’s make this about women’s health’. There are ways our industry can be very supportive of a lot of important causes, and I think it’s important where the content is so often derived from women’s health and beauty.”
There is no doubt that James’s career is one many would covet. But he is a man driven by philanthropic endeavour and an awareness of cultural divides in society, who harks back to Australia for inspiration – despite his international travels. Aboriginal reconciliation and a keen interest in human rights seems to really move him. “Australia is just an example of what happens when you have these big divides,” he tells me. “We call them cultural divides, but a lot of the time it’s just social economics driving it, and people become marginalised. The next opening I’ll do is in LA in January, when we’ll do a lot of community outreach and bring in lots of aboriginal artists and a lot of kids from the tougher areas in LA. That drives my photography more and more.”
There is no doubt that Russell James has ‘made it’ as a photographer; hence his ability to focus more on other areas of interest. But what advice does he have for those starting out in the business? “The harder I work, the luckier I get. There are no short cuts. You have to stay dedicated and keep shooting. There will be so many rejections, so much despondency, and so many people who say they don’t like your work, or a picture. Take the criticism positively. Listen to the people who matter and don’t be defensive. Turning up day after day is 90% of the battle.”
He admits that he still gets affected by criticism. “But I try not to ride the roller coaster. If something is good I try not to get too euphoric, and at the same time, if people don’t like something of mine, I try not to get too inward and go down too far on the roller coaster.”
www.russelljames.com
Featured in the November 2010 issue, back issues can be ordered from our website or by calling, 01858 438832
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