I’ve only photographed a couple of models in my life, and that’s because I started to know them — Kate and Helena scarpe Nike, Christy and Naomi. It became less of an idea of shooting a model and more of shooting a person because you know a person. Generally my focus has been on people who make things, whether it’s writers or directors or painters or musicians.
You think it’s bad for your hearing?
Yes. I never walk around with headphones on. I think you take yourself out of daily life if you do that. There is so much happening around you that is interesting.
I’d like to talk about some of the specific portraits in the show. Tell me about shooting Lucien Freud. Why was it special to you?
Well, the show comes after the film, but a lot of the stuff I photographed before the film. The images are basically from the past eight years. After 2002, when I did my self-portraits, there was a whole period that I started in the early ’70s that I felt I had finished. I wasn’t sure what direction to go to, so I was just taking pictures. But after a few years, it dawned on me that I was just going back to basics — taking simple black-and-white photographs of people I wanted to meet.
It feels like he’s a terrorist artist in the fashion world, using guerrilla tactics almost. Sometimes these pictures are forced to become more poignant because of circumstances after, like also with my Joy Division pictures. The pictures seemed to tell you something about future events although I had no idea. When something tragic happens, you look back on these pictures and they seem to predict something. They have some significance because of these events.
So this wasn’t reactionary — to do something more personal and intimate after such a big-budget project?
“The presentation is monumental,” he says, “but the feeling is very personal.” Portraits like the one of the late designer Alexander McQueen shrouding himself in a turtleneck have been blown up in proportion, but still convey a quiet intimacy.
The Moment caught up with the 55-year-old Corbijn on a recent Tuesday morning at the 60 Thompson Hotel. He was dressed in head-to-toe gray (jeans, sweater, shirt), a look that accentuated his bright blue eyes and silver hair. Corbijn had just flew in from Holland scarpe Nike, where he lives in The Hague after a 30-year residency in London. He spoke in a quiet scarpe Nike, measured tone, but with an unmistakable passion for his work that mirrors that of his subjects.
For example, the famous silhouette photo of Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell.
Your magazine work was often shot in this reportage kind of way, unstaged, no lights, spur-of-the-moment settings, really disarming the subject. Even your fashion work.
After directing the indie Joy Division biopic “Control” and the George Clooney thriller “The American,” as well as scores of music videos for groups like Nirvana, U2 and Depeche Mode, Anton Corbijn is back to where it all began for him: portraiture. No matter the strata of their celebrity, Corbijn manages to draw out something as yet undiscovered from his subjects. “Inwards and Onwards,” on view at Stellan Holm Gallery until Dec. 15, is a small selection of Corbijn’s black-and-white portraits of the creative people whose orbits have intersected his own. Rockers like Tom Waits and Anthony Kiedis mingle with painters such as Richard Prince and Lucian Freud. Corbijn holds them all in equal regard.
Anton Corbijn “Lucien Freud, London, 2008.”
Q.
What did you listen to in your iPod on your flight?
These photos can really be seen as prophetic.
Music has always been so intertwined with your career.
Another photo that is striking and obviously prescient now is the one of Alexander McQueen.
I’m not so concerned with budgets in that sense or the effect of that. Film is more collaborative, and this is a very singular vision. Of course with a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with “The American” and “Control” I managed to do that. It’s such a different life. And there’s an appeal to me in the life of the photographer — one camera and meeting people. No lights, no assistants, just me taking the photograph. The really simple approach to photography is a great balance to making the films. So I really appreciate that life again after making films.
You think I listen to an iPod? Never. I don’t listen to music on headphones. I don’t like it and I don’t think it’s good for you either.
You just came off of a big movie, and now you are shooting portraits of creative people again. Do you feel like you are coming full circle to the beginnings of your career as a music photographer?
I usually don’t talk about shoots because I don’t want to limit the imagination you can have when you look at the photograph. But with Freud, I liked his paintings always very much and they’re very human. I feel that he looks through a 35-millimeter lens, kind of. He’s an older man, but there is such a strength in the photograph. There is such a presence there, the boldness of the arm. I think it’s fantastic for a man to be so obsessed still with what he’s doing. That is what he is really. He doesn’t take holidays. That photograph is very inspiring of him. It took a long time to get permission to photograph him.
Yes, and it also has to do with me. I learn a lot from these people. I meet these people and my life gains something from them, and then I go on again.
It was the case, of course, also with Kurt Cobain. I’m generally attracted to people who put a lot of their own energy and character into their work and give it all. With Kurt that was the case, as with Jeff Buckley and Ian Curtis and a few others. They affect me. Especially at that age — when I was in my 20s and 30s, I put everything I had into my work. It was the only thing I lived for. I can empathize and I am attracted to people who do the same in different disciplines but have that attitude.
Which fashion stories are you talking about? I didn’t do so much.
I use artificial lights if they’re there, but I don’t carry lights. That’s how I used to photograph in the ’70s. It’s back to basics in that sense.
How did it come about that you didn’t want to use any lighting and just wanted it to be stark and natural?
These pictures aren’t fashion. We were stuck somewhere in somebody’s house at some point, and these pictures just came about. I think it’s more the question of models. I have never understood models. I find it really hard to find beauty in that or to discover beauty because the beauty was so obvious. I always found it more interesting to discover beauty. With models I never knew what to do. It was uncomfortable for me that they were always so beautiful. I didn’t know what I could discover there that wasn’t so plainly obvious. That’s why I find models difficult and the models I photograph are usually naked, it is more back to a person I find.
Am I correct in thinking that the title “Inwards and Onwards” is a reflection on the true revelation of your subjects and their movement through life?
Anton Corbijn Anton Corbijn’s portrait of Alexander McQueen in London in 2007.
Music is where it all started for me. Music was my one obsession in life, and I managed to transform it into a love for photography. It was my inspiration, and that’s why it was my natural subject matter. Music will always mean something to me, but I won’t follow it as much anymore.
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