His story :
Russell James was born in 1962 in Australia and he is a fashion photographer. He did not think of becoming a photographer and because of this, he calls himself an accidental photographer. Curiosity brought him to do this job. He left school at a young age and found himself working a lot in very different fields for years. He was taking care of trash and then he became a police officer for five years. He started to be curious about the world, so he started traveling and quit the police force. He got introduced to photography by becoming the assistant of a photographer in 1989 in New York at the age of 29 and he fell in love with the process. At the time, digital photography was not a thing, everything was shot on film and he assisted the photographer as he was developing the images. After this, he became a photographer and he loved doing a lot of types of photography. He liked doing landscapes as much as portraits when his photographer journey started. He had quite a lot of trouble making a name for himself at first, and just as he was thinking about going back to Australia and quit photography, he booked a job for W-Magazine. This was the start of his career and he was hired by other companies and magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Ralph Lauren, Vogue, and more. He the main photographer for Victoria’s Secret soon after.
He stopped for a while his fashion work to go on a journey to understand and portray the Aboriginal population in Australia. “using his art and platform to bring increased visibility to the issue that plagued him as a child. Thus began Nomad Two Worlds (N2W), an artistic “journey to understand” that used photography and film to convey what he identified as being the three stages of culture clash: innocence, inhibition, and discovery.” Many celebrities collaborated on this project. His attention to detail, emotion, and empowerment are what makes his work stand out.
His motivation:
What drives him to do his work are the following things: the images empower women, he can tell a story and make a difference.
His Process:
As opposed to many photographers, when he is photographing a model, he starts rather close to them to create eye contact with the lens. Usually, photographers like to be far and to get closer, he does the opposite. He says it leads him right to the soul of that person. It makes them feel at ease with him rather fast. Before every shooting he does, he makes sure to talk about life in general to the person he going to be working with to make them feel comfortable. He asks questions about their kids, their job, and sometimes politics. Basically, anything to distract them from the shooting for a few minutes. When he feels like the tension dropping, he starts to shoot.
People can sometimes think he is objectifying women because of the poses or the clothes they are wearing. He explains in an interview with Charlie Rose that it can be hard to balance art and commerce together, especially when you work for brands such as Victoria’s Secret. He proceeds by saying he shoots women for women, so he measures failure on how women receive it, and it is very important to him. He also has daughters which makes it even more important.
A lot of his nude photography does not include nudity, which is kind of ironic. He does not want the focus to be on nudity but on the person he is photographing. This proves that he wants to empower women and not portrait them as objects.
He talks and puts emphasis on the eyes a lot. For him, as I mention before, the eyes are a portal to the soul. They tell a story.
Targeted Audience:
Depending on the project he is working on, his targeted audience change. For instance, when he works on the commercials for Victoria’s Secret, his targeted audience are young women and grown women. When he is working on a commercial for a phone, the targeted audience are the people looking for a new phone.
His equipment:
He is currently using a Canon EOS R camera, and he likes to use an 85mm lens or telephoto lenses. He also likes shooting 35mm films but he does it less than he used to.
Other work:
He made an appearance on YouTube in 2018 and he shared a series of videos explaining different photography tricks, tips, and important aspects such as different lighting situations and human connection.
His work has been in many expositions around the world and had been published in many magazines such as Vogue and Elle.
What I like about this photographer:
I like Russell James because he is not only good at fashion photography. He is also able to capture emotions and tell a story. He also does this type of photography to empower women and for women, which is good because a few decades ago, this industry would take images of women for men. He also demonstrated a lot of understanding and interest in history and the emotions of the Nomads. He wanted to change things and he did with his project.
He is also good at capturing moments and movements
Critique of one image:
It was difficult to choose only one picture from this photographer. But I ended up choosing this one and here is why. I love the composition, the colours, the location, the lighting, and the mood of this image. I am convinced this picture was shot with a Canon, probably the one he is currently using which is the Canon EOS R. I am sure his shutter speed was pretty high, probably around 1/250-500 because the background is blurry (which means the aperture was big – f/4 f/5.6), his ISO must have been 100.
I love the composition because it is quite simple, the woman is not in the middle of the frame, she is slightly on the left side of it. Although she is not at the exact place to respect 100% the rule of thirds, it still reminds me of the rule. Her body and her reflection are on the left side line and her eyes are on the top line. I like the fact that her head is on the dark side of the rock because if it would have been on the bright side, it would have been too distracting. Since her hair is black, it falls in perfectly with the rock and the difference is just enough to separate her from the background.
I love the moody and dark colors of this image. The warm color from the sunset mixed with the greenery in the background and the water is amazing. The mood of this image would have been completely different a couple of hours before. The contrast between the colours adds a nice touch, I think it makes her look confident and strong, I do not know why.
The location is great for portraits like this. It makes sense since she is wearing a bathing suit to be in the water. I enjoy how the photographer decided to leave elements of the background in the shot because it gives us a sense of place.
The lighting is amazing. The lighting pattern he chose to do is “short”. He could have chosen to do a split lighting pattern, but then again the picture’s mood would have been really different and more dramatic. The control on the highlights and the shadows is more than great (although he probably fixed some in post-production), he still managed to do it well on camera to salvage as much in post. It can be hard to balance the two at this time of the day in harsh lighting like this.
Presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VdNutFPekZ7Fl-RpsmN5kfNGea39B9eHNghxDyShcUQ/edit?usp=sharing
Sources:
Reference 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blWg2DtwfTM
Reference 2: https://russelljames.com/
Reference 4: https://web.archive.org/web/20130701115754/http://www.photoicon.com/news/355/
Reference 5:
NOMAD TWO WORLDS | Official Website
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