Stepping Out

What is it that continues to worry some, fascinate others, about fashion photography? Its practitioners are in the business of making images which are like butterflies, destined to dazzle for a brief period on the wing, then consigned to an early death. To get serious, place them in another context, suggest they are ephemeral, is to tread on dangerous ground. Stake claims for the interesting photographers of the moment and you're on even thinner ice, making judgements which history is liable to rapidly overturn. Well, Max Vadukul has made some photographs worth sticking your neck out for. And his work raises interesting questions about the status of fashion photography.

Vadukul's photographs have recently been published in two books which place the raw material of fashion magazines in a different context. First was The Idealising Vision. It was published by Aperture, and that in itself tells us something about changing attitudes within photography's hierarchy. Subtitled The Art of Fashion Photography it speaks of the genre's 'enduring and profound achievements', sentiments which must have had Minor White, Aperture's founder and leading proselytiser for 'pure' photography, screaming in his grave.

Next is a book entitled simply Pictures of Peace. Thirty-five photographers were invited to contribute their work - on the theme of peace - to a project which, in part, was a celebration of the end of the Gulf War. Many of the featured names are established fashion photographers, others are more accurately described as fashionable. In the latter category Sebastiao Salgado is the name that stands out. Any reservations you had about Salgado's work were all brilliantly articulated by Ingrid Sischy in the New Yorker: She develops Susan Sontag's familiar argument about the aestheticization of pain, and comes up with some compelling facts about the way Salgado has been hyped internationally. So we have been seeing some strange developments, where the moralistic line of attack on fashion photographers has been turned on a 'photo-journalist', and fashion photography itself is penetrating deeper into the photo-establishment.

The point of this is not to claim for fashion photography an unwarranted ennoblement - it is no more deserving of that than any other branch of the medium. But I see young photographers - Max Vadukul is a good example - working by choice around the imposed disciplines and limitations of fashion and producing images which seem as relevant as many others of today. If they are remotely serious about what they do they must find the lack of reaction to their work discouraging. The outsider might feel theirs is not a dilemma worth shedding many tears over - they're often well paid after all, and lead an existence many would envy. Indeed fashion photography seems to have a hidden army of fans, silently consuming it in ever increasing quantities. But, outside of the magazines for which it is produced, fashion photography has no forum. And some stunning butterflies slip by unrecognised.

Since the criticism of photography has long been dominated by a species of bearded male, it is no surprise that fashion photography was largely treated with disdain. While there have been isolated exceptions, this generally remains true today. Neo-Marxists (Saussaurians, Semioticians) have looked at it, but pronounced it politically incorrect. 'Cultural historians' have found it useful, but treat it with both condescension and a lack of discrimination: for them the worst photograph provides equally fertile material for analysis as the best. The problem, insofar as it affects the working photographer, with valuing theory above practice, was pinpointed by Nan Goldin: interviewed in Bomb (Fall 1991) she described her 'aversion to Postmodern theory', which doesn't have 'anything to do with the creative process.'

Compared to, say, twenty or thirty years ago, the possibilities for a fashion photographer now are severely limited. Max Vadukul, for example, prefers to work in black and white, which immediately creates problems with the high-fashion glossies who, because of pressure from advertisers, are devoted to colour. It is all the more admirable then, that his tenacity has paid off, though as a consequence he works far less frequently on editorial stories than did his distinguished predecessors. The power-base has changed - now it is the models who shift magazines off news-stands, and the photographers seem to be regarded as little more than a necessary evil, small cogs in a vast corporate industry. Those with an opinion simply create more problems. The editor-in-chief of American Vogue drew attention to this in her preface to the Aperture book: 'We want a photographer to take a dress, make the girl look pretty, give us lots of images to choose from, and not give us any attitude.' She might even have had vadukul in mind when she expanded on her concerns: '...the shoot will be done in black and white, even if the fashion concept is colour; it will cost a lot; there will be a three week wait while the photographer edits; and then a single image will be delivered in which you can't see the clothes.'

Max Vadukul was born in Nairobi in 1961, educated in England, and lives in Paris. For someone so young he speaks alarmingly like a veteran. And in a sense he is, having worked not only for the more branche magazines like The Face since the early 80s, but also for the American, French and Italian editions of Vogue. He endeavours to remain as detached from the fashion game as possible: 'It was not an obsession. I started off travelling the world, taking documentary pictures - I never looked at fashion magazines. I happen to like women, and for me it is very rewarding to document the woman of today; but I am just as happy to photograph cars or hi-fis.'

Vadukul clearly believes that fashion today offers too little to sustain a photographer indefinitely: 'It's like squeezing the juice from a lemon which is getting drier and drier. It's for young people - your audience is sixteen to twenty-year-old girls. It's a very immature business in many ways, and you can't make that your life's work.' Like many other photographers he branched out early into making videos and directing TV commercials, beginning with his award-winning The Expedition film for Williwear in 1985. 'Stanley Kubrick was always a model for me. His evolution was admirable - starting off as a still photographer on Look magazine and gradually moving into film directing.'

In his fashion photographs Vadukul consistently maintains a healthy irreverence, as if he is ever-so-slightly sending up the whole business. But it was his interpretation of the modern woman, leaping across the frame in an exaggerated yet agile manner, that was his greatest strength. (In his most recent work, it should be added, he has returned to anchoring his women firmly to the ground.) He took Munkacsi's Modernist sportswomen of the 30s and turned them to into Madison Avenue power-dressers: 'I want to show the way women can surprise you with certain body forms. The woman of today is a fairy-like figure - Pre-raphaelite women don't exist any more. They're powerful, aggressive, and this is what I try to document; it's quite scary sometimes - now, they make the propositions.'

Some of Vadukul's strongest photographs have strayed too far from illustrating the clothes, and remain unpublished. Many of the stories that were published kept the spirit of the Post-Modernist 80s, and were amusingly retrospective - 'Betty Boop fait son Come-back', 'La Dolce Vita 89'. 'The most important thing is that you have a good story,' he says. 'There are no great editors now - women like Carmel Snow and DIana Vreeland who had a vision. And no great art directors - photographers have to be their own art directors.' He is married to Nicoletta Santoro, whose work on the Italian and French editions of Vogue has made her one of the most influential editor/stylists of recent years. 'A stylist can be very important, but they are invisible, they get no credit. If they foul up it's the photographer who takes the rap.'

In fact the photographer's by-line only appears in magazine editorials. Much of Vadukul's work therefore is anonymous except to those inside the business. As well as his TV commercials this means that his latest pictures of Lisa Stansfield, the series of ads for Chloe (shot in colour but carefully controlled so as to be almost monochrome), and the complex panoramas for Veuve Cliquot, are not generally recognised as his work. If he does emulate Kubrick and move increasingly into film it is likely he will continue to photograph women: 'Fashion photography can swallow you up with its champagne and caviar lifestyle. You need to have a completely different aspect, otherwise it's like living in a silk cushion. I try to keep it at arms length. I still treat it as photography first, and hope to keep fresh - otherwise you're finished.'