Nick Knight - Photographer

[Benn98]

UK Vogue February 2019

The Hollywood Portfolio: Shine A Light

Photographer: Nick Knight
Stylist: Kate Phelan
Hair: Sam McKnight
Makeup: Laura Dominique
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Carey Mulligan, Laura Harrier, Yalitza Aparicio, Rosamund Pike, Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Felicity Jones



UK Vogue Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

Pioneering fashion filmmaker and photographer Nick Knight talks about working with Alexander McQueen and Yohji Yamamoto

• Knight started working in the fashion business in the 1980s as a photographer
• Catch some of his fashion films and iconic photos at his exhibition at ArtisTree in Taikoo Place

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 13 January, 2019, 9:04pm
UPDATED : Monday, 14 January, 2019, 4:49pm
Vincenzo La Torre
[email protected]


British-born Nick Knight, who as the founder of digital platform Showstudio, was one of the first photographers to create fashion films, likes to call himself an image maker.


He started his career in the 1980s working for designers such as Yohji Yamamoto and went on to collaborate with the late Alexander McQueen and shoot for magazines such as Vogue.

His videos and some of his most striking photographs are currently on view at Beyond Fashion, a photography exhibition at ArtisTree in Hong Kong.

We caught up with the outspoken Knight on the eve of the opening of the exhibition. Here are excerpts from the conversation.

On fashion as art

There’s been a clear demand for fashion. Look at Savage Beauty [the 2011 exhibition about Alexander McQueen at the Metropolitan Museum in New York]. Who knew that it would be so successful? Fashion draws people to these institutions. Monet, Rembrandt and Caravaggio, all the great artists, are big draws, but museums need to have people coming through them. Someone like Alexander McQueen is a contemporary artist. Also, if you look at prices of fashion photographs at auction, you’ll see how they’ve gone up. There’s been an understanding that fashion photography is an important cultural medium. If you look back at the history of fashion photography, it’s like a barometer of cultural change in society so it has cultural value. A lot of people didn’t see it before but now they do.

On Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto

I started working with him in 1986 and his brief to me was always the same: “Show me my dreams.” It was a very nice way to interpret a collection. He would never say show me a sleeve length or a garment but take me somewhere I want to go, show me what my dreams are. His aesthetic was so beautiful and poetic. Before then designers expressed themselves so sexually, which started in the ’60s up until Aids. From the arrival of the pill to Aids you had this sexual bubble. Fashion imagery was very sexualised and fashion was hypersexualised. I never enjoyed that and my career began with Yohji Yamamoto, who never showed a woman’s cleavage or back or bottom. It was about her soul or heart or poetry or mind. The power of women’s bodies versus showing their bodies. It was very new for me and a very exciting time. It was a more intellectual discourse in fashion, which I think was entirely good.

On fashion photography in Asia

What’s happening in imagery at the moment is very forward looking. It’s the separation between photography, which is the past, and image making, which is the future. Image making entails fashion film, sculpture and lots of different mediums and now also artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Asia is much more in tune with that than the West. We’re also seeing politically in North America and Europe retrospective and populist movements that look to the past, whereas Asia prefers to look to the future. There was a desire to imitate the West, but now Asia is finding its own voice. From Vietnam to South Korea, lots of artistic communities are springing up that are not interested in just following or mimicking Western art. Now you see more Western artists coming to Asia because that’s where the energy is.

On the digital revolution

Anybody with a pen can claim to be a writer, but that hasn’t created a huge amount of great work. There are more photographers now but the proliferation of digital devices has just meant that more people know about image making but not all of them have the desire and devotion to articulate their whole lives through cameras like a photographer or image maker does. It’s about your whole life talking through that lens and that medium and taking an image and expressing yourself through that medium. There’s a difference between just taking a picture and making your lifetime about taking pictures.

On the future of publishing

Magazines sell 100,000 or 50,000 issues. When someone like Kim Kardashian has more than 100 million followers the power is not with the magazines but with people like her. Magazines no longer decide who should be in fashion. Now it’s done through social media. When you broadcast a fashion show live, like we were the first to do at SHOWstudio with Plato Atlantis, McQueen’s last show, that changed fashion, because at that point you think I want that piece of clothing so why wait for a magazine to show you this three months after you established the desire? So magazines are now out of that loop; they’re no longer needed. Magazines are there to show amazing fashion photographs and regrettably a lot of them have forgotten that. They need to invest in amazing photography and image making if they want to maintain their place because that’s the only raison d’être of fashion magazines nowadays. If they don’t support great fashion imagery and don’t get behind that, there won’t be a future for them. Whenever I shoot a story for a magazine, I see it on Instagram before I ever see it in the actual magazine.

On what’s next in fashion filmmaking

We get sent at least one fashion film every day at SHOWstudio from somewhere in the world and the best fashion filmmakers are from Asia and Russia. North America doesn’t understand fashion film yet. They think it needs to have a narrative but fashion film is as different from film as fashion photography is from photography. It’s about showing a piece of clothing, not telling a story. All filmmaking needs a narrative but fashion filmmaking is not about a narrative. If you look at the history of cinema in US and Europe, it’s more narrative driven, but in Russia and Asia it’s not. There’s a very different history of filmmaking in Asia and Russia and you see that clearly in fashion films now.

South China Morning Post

 

[Benn98]

UK Vogue April 2019

Let Me Put This Out There...

Photographer: Nick Knight
Stylist: Kate Phelan
Hair: Sam McKnight
Makeup: Peter Philips
Manicure: Marian Newman
Cast: Naomi Scott




UK Vogue Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

UK Vogue April 2019

From Byzantium

Photographer: Nick Knight
Stylist: Carol Woolton
Hair: Sam McKnight
Makeup: Val Garland
Manicure: Marian Newman
Set Design: Andrew Tomlinson
Cast: Duckie Thot



UK Vogue Digital Edition

 

[StockholmFW]

Vogue Japan January 2020:



'The Roses of Fall'



Photographer: Nick Knight
Models: Grace Elizabeth, Anok Yai
Stylist: Sarajane Hoare
Make-up: Lisa Eldridge
Hair stylist: Sam McKnight
Nails: Adam Slee
Set designer: Andrew Tomlinson
Casting director: Piergiorgio Del Moro



nextmanagement

 

[Benn98]

Vogue China March 2020



Beyond the Spotlight

Photographer: Nick Knight
Stylist: Daniela Paudice
Hair: Jawara
Makeup: Val Garland
Manicure: Marian Newman
Cast: Chris Lee



Vogue China Digital Edition

 

[aracic]

V Magazine #124 Spring 2020

Couture Flash

Photographer: Nick Knight
Styling: Anna Trevelyan
Hair: Sam McKnight
Make-up: Laura Dominique
Nails: Jenny Longworth
Set Design: Andrew Tomlinson
Model: Issa Lish


V Magazine

 

[aracic]

V Magazine #124 Spring 2020

Maximum Volume

Photography: Nick Knight
Fashion Editor: Anna Trevelyan
Hair Styling: Sam McKnight
Make-up: Laura Dominique
Set Design: Andrew Tomlinson
Models: Sara Grace Wallerstedt, Achenrin Madit, Chu Wong


V Magazine

 

[Benn98]

Dazed & Confused August 1999

Push Me Pull Me

Photographer: Nick Knight
Stylist: Katy England
Makeup: Val Garland
Cast: Children from The Moving Visions Group



Dazed & Confused Digital Edition

 

[Benn98]

Vogue China June 2020



Bad Girl

Photographer: Nick Knight
Stylist: Daniela Paudice
Hair & Makeup: Mara Roszak
Cast: Billie Eilish







Vogue China Digital Edition

 

[aracic]

US Vogue May 1995

Cut To Pieces
Photographer: Nick Knight
Fashion Editor: Camilla Nickerson
Hair Styling: Julien d'Ys
Makeup: Pat McGrath
Model: Trish Goff


Vogue Archive

 

[VogueGirl8910]

US Vogue September 1994
"Technovision"
Model: Linda Evangelista
Photographer: Nick Knight
Stylist: Camilla Nickerson
Hair: Julien d'Ys
Makeup: Linda Cantello




archive.vogue.com

 

[Clare]

Hi,

These are the only images I can find from a March 1995 editorial in Vogue UK photographed by Nick Knight featuring Kate Moss. Has anyone come acrooss the full editorial?

Thank you :-)

 

[VogueGirl8910]

US Vogue August 1995
"Off the Grid - Courrèges Edge"
Model: Kate Moss
Photographer: Nick Knight
Fashion Editor: Camilla Nickerson
Hair: Guido Palau
Makeup: Dick Page



archive.vogue.com

 

[aracic]

AnOther Magazine A/W 2002.03

End Of

Photographer: Nick Knight
Art Direction: Michael Clark
Styling: Katy England, Sofia de Romarte
Hair Styling: Sam McKnight
Makeup: Val Garland
Cast: Michael Clark, Lorena Randi, Kate Coyne, Kerry Biggin, Melissa Hetherington, E Storbeck, T Venter









AnOther Digital Edition

 

[aracic]

AnOther Magazine Spring/Summer 2004

Lo-Fi Exotic

Photographer: Nick Knight, Craig McDean (opening portrait of Tabitha)
Styling: Katy England
Hair Styling: Recine
Makeup: Val Garland
Cast: Chris, Mariacarla Boscono, Oskar, Troy, Lily, Tabitha Simmons, VV (The Kills), Kez, Cora Corre, Serena Rees, Alister Mackie, Michael Clark, Lorena Randi, Merlin Glozier, Bobby Gillespie, Phillipa Horan, Karen Binns, Wayne Lee


AnOther Digital Edition

 

[aracic]

AnOther Magazine Autumn/Winter 2004.05

Almost Exactly

Photographer: Nick Knight
Styling: Alister Mackie
Hair Styling: Sam McKnight
Makeup: Val Garland
Models: Britni, Marta Berzkalna, Erin O'Connor


AnOther Digital Edition

 

[aracic]

US Vogue January 1995

Body Work

Photographer: Nick Knight
Styling: Camilla Nickerson
Hair Styling: Julien d'Ys
Makeup: Linda Cantello
Model: Meghan Douglas


Vogue Archive

 

[aracic]

US Vogue November 1995

Peak Performance

Photographer: Nick Knight
Styling: Camilla Nickerson
Hair Styling: Guido Palau
Makeup: Dick Page
Model: Linda Evangelista


Vogue Archive

 

[aracic]

US Vogue April 1996

Wide World Of Sports

Photographer: Nick Knight
Styling: Phyllis Posnick
Hair Styling: Didier Malige
Makeup: Mary Greenwell
Model: Nadja Auermann


Vogue Archive