Welcome to Terryworld
by Dian Hanson
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"The night before [the shoot] I called my dad and said, 'I can't do it with you. I need to make it myself or I'm not going to get anywhere', and he was like, 'You'll never do it on your own, you can't make it without me!' I said 'Fuck you' and hung up the phone. I just hoped he wouldn't show up the next day." Bob didn't show up and the art director was happy to let Terry script the shoot his way. "There was one male model who quit because he wouldn't make out with the girls, but I did this story of kids getting drunk and making out and pissing in the streets. It ended up going into the Festival de la Mode for best new fashion story of the year. So basically, I went in and won an award. This was '93." Terry was now an award-winning fashion photographer, but he quickly learned it took more than a trophy to convince New York's fashion establishment that kids pissing in the snow could move product. Fortunately he had a friend who told him, "Real photographers don't wait for the phone to ring; they go out and take pictures."
"Kevin showed me Larry Clark's Teenage Lust and Nan Goldin's The Other Side. I'd never seen photos like that; I didn't think anyone would document that stuff. So concurrently with doing that story for Vibe I started hanging out in the East Village and Tompkin's Square Park every day, taking pictures of kids, the homeless, junkies. Going out at night and photographing all the antics of the East Village. I developed this documentary passion. Photographing everything."
When the phone finally did ring it was British designer Phil Bicker, who'd nominated Terry's Vibe piece for the Festival de la Mode and launched a number of photographic careers as art director of the edgy English-style magazine The Face. Bicker offered him the Katherine Hamnett fashion campaign. Terry went to London, did the campaign and worked for ID, The Face and "all those magazines".
Suddenly the New Yorkers who'd rejected Terry's portfolio, the ones who'd told him his pictures were too amateurish, that fashion photos couldn't look like snapshots, that his work resembled some seventies' porn film, all wanted to book him. Since, his photos have appeared in the US, French, British and Japanese editions of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, W, Arena Homme Plus, Dazed & Confused, Purple, Vice and most of the world's major fashion titles. He's shot campaigns for Gucci, Levi Strauss, Miu Miu, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Club Monaco, Anna Molinari, Supreme, Stüssy, Baby Phat, Costume National, Hysteric Glamour, Matsuda, Eres, Jigsaw and Sisley, with the Sisley photos particularly instrumental in creating the Richardson legend.
"Sisley was a great job for a long time because they were really just letting me be me, doing whatever the hell I wanted to do. It was all about sex pictures. I've always been able to walk that fine line, to balance myself, to do fashion and also do my naughty pictures. Why do I get away with it? I'm a genius. With a capital J."
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
"The night before [the shoot] I called my dad and said, 'I can't do it with you. I need to make it myself or I'm not going to get anywhere', and he was like, 'You'll never do it on your own, you can't make it without me!' I said 'Fuck you' and hung up the phone. I just hoped he wouldn't show up the next day." Bob didn't show up and the art director was happy to let Terry script the shoot his way. "There was one male model who quit because he wouldn't make out with the girls, but I did this story of kids getting drunk and making out and pissing in the streets. It ended up going into the Festival de la Mode for best new fashion story of the year. So basically, I went in and won an award. This was '93." Terry was now an award-winning fashion photographer, but he quickly learned it took more than a trophy to convince New York's fashion establishment that kids pissing in the snow could move product. Fortunately he had a friend who told him, "Real photographers don't wait for the phone to ring; they go out and take pictures."
"Kevin showed me Larry Clark's Teenage Lust and Nan Goldin's The Other Side. I'd never seen photos like that; I didn't think anyone would document that stuff. So concurrently with doing that story for Vibe I started hanging out in the East Village and Tompkin's Square Park every day, taking pictures of kids, the homeless, junkies. Going out at night and photographing all the antics of the East Village. I developed this documentary passion. Photographing everything."
When the phone finally did ring it was British designer Phil Bicker, who'd nominated Terry's Vibe piece for the Festival de la Mode and launched a number of photographic careers as art director of the edgy English-style magazine The Face. Bicker offered him the Katherine Hamnett fashion campaign. Terry went to London, did the campaign and worked for ID, The Face and "all those magazines".
Suddenly the New Yorkers who'd rejected Terry's portfolio, the ones who'd told him his pictures were too amateurish, that fashion photos couldn't look like snapshots, that his work resembled some seventies' porn film, all wanted to book him. Since, his photos have appeared in the US, French, British and Japanese editions of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, W, Arena Homme Plus, Dazed & Confused, Purple, Vice and most of the world's major fashion titles. He's shot campaigns for Gucci, Levi Strauss, Miu Miu, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Club Monaco, Anna Molinari, Supreme, Stüssy, Baby Phat, Costume National, Hysteric Glamour, Matsuda, Eres, Jigsaw and Sisley, with the Sisley photos particularly instrumental in creating the Richardson legend.
"Sisley was a great job for a long time because they were really just letting me be me, doing whatever the hell I wanted to do. It was all about sex pictures. I've always been able to walk that fine line, to balance myself, to do fashion and also do my naughty pictures. Why do I get away with it? I'm a genius. With a capital J."
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(c) Terry Richardson