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my name is adria and today I'm here to
interview the marvelous Tim Walker
everyone has something and I think
sometimes fashion forget that and I was
concerned that individuality and
uniqueness is on the way throughout his
25-year career tim has shots on the
world's most enduring cultural icons
from Kate Moss to Alexander McQueen and
David Lynch to Tilda Swinton using the
mantras stay weird stay different tim
has been six months shooting IDs special
summer issue in over 80 sittings he has
explored London's creativity through
some of the most important voices in
contemporary youth culture starting at
the beginning why and when did he start
taking photos in basic terms it wasn't
photography that I was first into his
pictures and I think as a kid it was the
illustrative form of communication that
I felt more comfortable with
I was always doodling and drawing the
pictures the cartoons develops into me
noticing photography and then it is went
from there and then I discovered fashion
photography because it was the most of a
fantastical element of photography I
used to sort of look at fashion magazine
tear pictures out then I used to go to
libraries and look at photographers that
I was particularly interested in Diane
Arbus August sander they all sort of the
pillars of photography in a way and then
that led down to sort of more specific
fashion photography I did it start off
with something that's slightly more
personal you see I never thought I could
be a photographer the technical aspect
of the camera which is something I was
so not it wasn't my world technique when
I was growing up it was more like I felt
like it was I couldn't do it I would
never know how to focus a camera and I
didn't know what an ester was or what or
speed of film I didn't know what that
meant but the finished thing that
photograph is something that really
spoke to me
could you talk a bit about the early
program I would go back to my mom's
house and then next door to my mum
there's sort of lots of all people they
became performers so in a way my first
models was 8 year olds you know maybe
I'm working backwards and starting with
the elderly and then going back to the
youth I don't know anyways when I was in
America I was reading Catcher in the Rye
by JD Salinger and I was interested in
the visual when Holden Caulfield talks
about children playing in a field and he
has to be the catcher and stopped them
from falling over the edge of the cliff
how do you really do this this was sort
of like I was in my early twenties I
read Salinger's passage and immediately
translated it into picture like sort of
print out machine I can see it and I
wanted to sort of send that picture back
out again of my head
in the early 90s Tim moved to New York
to assist legendary American fashion
photographer Richard Avedon we were
shooting the Versace campaign there are
two models there was Kristin and Nadia
web your two crows and it's early in the
morning and you're sitting on a branch
and you're looking for a whirl and then
they were fighting over the worm in the
grass that was the studio floor and
industrious studio in New York that
didn't exist so he was a great
communicator
and great at giving his performers a
role everything that I love about
shooting with you is that for that
moment in time I'm allowed to be someone
different absolutely and I think as a
photographer now age 45 or Overmeyer
nothing photographs at 25 years and I
assisted all those years cause there's
some amazing performers out there
I think particular Kristen she will go
further than you we were doing a shoot
up in Northumberland
and we were standing on the edge of the
sea and she was a catfish she said you
know what I've always wanted to be a
mermaid
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I've been very lucky and I've just been
amazed at how people that maybe work on
film like tilde yeah how she can portray
emotion in a sort of frozen moment I
remember we're in Mexico and I was
filming her on a moving camera and she
was moving it's one of my favorite
brushes are actually and she's moving
and then she ends up she looked right
into the camera some people have this
power and very comfortable relationship
it's like a friendship or you know
hammer that I think is very interesting
Tim spent six months working with ID
issue an issue celebrating the most
exciting and important voices in youth
culture today you've shot over a hundred
people for this yeah issue of ID can we
talk this through skills I think this
whole ID exercise for me has been
meeting so many different people with so
many different voices and dreams and
desires and talents and homing in on one
aspect of them that I think's their
thing if they're a designer they've
brought their models in and their
clothes and stall them and then they've
ended up in a picture and it's been
totally led by all those different
characters and are you very much part of
the casting as well yeah although with
this it was out of my realm so I work
with ID we've start out with one group
of people and then we photograph them
and then we would ask them who do you
think is interesting and doing something
that's interesting in the moment and
then they would say okay this person
certain then the net then broadened it
is it an interesting psychological
Safari Hoover some of your favorite
people collaborate when doing there
weren't favorite they all great whatever
individual reason they have someone like
Grace Coddington graces work with
everyone from Cecil Beaton up to Helmut
Newton and food people dad having worked
together since the early 2000s
Tim collaborated to the legendary
stylist Grace Coddington together they
short John Galliano's Maison Margiela
collection in Paris I remember seeing
your pictures like a long time back and
I kept saying Tim Walker Tim Walker and
they all you know everybody was into
something else at that point yeah what I
would saw in your pictures that
resonates with me is you have a romance
you have a gentleness in the limb if you
know it's part of being English too I
think and there was always a bit of
humor with your life and I think maybe
that was hard for America
bogans beginning to appear except and I
was struggling with it
so we are looking at home pictures being
a way up and like photography has been
transformed since Tim began taking
photos this ID project signals a new
avenue as he experiments with shooting
digitally for the first time when I
started out we were shooting on on 10 8
films
I very much followed the film route and
then meanwhile the world changes and
digital is born I was never an T it but
I was anti what certain people did with
it to overly perfect stuff you pick up a
magazine in the 1970s and you see
everyone sort of like rosy cheeks and
sweaty faces and pimples and freckles
but there's something that's her life
but at the same time I always recognize
it as an incredible tool I think digital
is extraordinary
with digital I can reacts I can capture
that really quickly a human gesture that
is fleeting it's gone I'd lost it so the
whole ID project for me actually it was
the first time I've decided to really
experiment digitally this is a massive
project huge yeah you can be three
generations older but there's so much
you can still take from what the young
are doing I'm not a youth anymore and I
want to know what is being said yeah I
think that's that's maybe what I don't
get one of our other magazines is such
as sort of justification to engage with
a younger generation and fascinates me
do you have any advice for any young
photographers starting out
I think God got so much advice cameras a
black box and in that black box there's
a mirror and that mirror slips up for a
millisecond and leaves its imprint on a
piece of film I think the notion of the
mirror is so vital to the photographer
you have to be very honest about what
moves you because it will reflect in
that picture and then that picture will
just float down the stream of
nothingness you have to mean it and if
you don't mean it
you'll get cooled out yeah yeah yeah
thanks Tim that's absolute pleasure
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I'm trying to make joy I'm trying to
make happiness and that I don't consider
superficial that I consider extremely
necessary
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