Dave Waddell interviews the fashion and travel photographer Alistair Taylor-Young, ostensibly about a recent trip to Chad’s Ennedi Massif, but also about what he believes makes a great photograph, why he doesn’t think he’s a fashion photographer, and much else on the art of photography. Will Jones organised his trip, and Taylor-Young photographed the experience for Condé Nast Traveler’s September cover story Sands of Time, written by Aminatta Forna.
You work in many different genres, though I think you’re known as a fashion photographer first and foremost. How did you start?
I always wanted to do fashion, but when I started out as an assistant, I made a conscious effort to work with anyone but a fashion photographer. There are so many amazing photographers out there who after assisting for four or five years end up as very good carbon copies of the people they assist. I ended up assisting a food photographer, a wonderful woman and great at what she does. I was the worst assistant ever – she would often throw her hands up in the air – and yet she kept me on, I think because I was kind and helpful. She taught me all the basics and I avoided becoming a carbon copy of a fashion photographer I could never be.
One of my favourite photographs of yours is of ostrich, partly because it has to with the world I work in, but mostly because you seem hellbent on not representing the subject, a motif common to a lot of your travel photography.
That’s because I’m not taking a picture of an ostrich. You’ve got books that can show you what an ostrich looks like. They don’t really show you what it’s like to be on safari, to stand in front of an ostrich, or in that particular light, amongst all that movement. It’s taking poetic licence with the subject in so much as clarity or precision is not as interesting for me as the feeling I’m having – being here, taking this. It’s the language of the drawing or sketch, which has very little information, but is emotionally rewarding for the viewer, who fills the gaps with his or her imagination, with their own feelings, colours, tones, and imagery.
What has Tintin and Lawrence of Arabia have to do with ending up travelling to Chad?
I am quite the fan of Tintin. This whole idea of going to distant places – and with such historical accuracy. It introduces you to the world. Similarly, I remember my mother had a wonderful collection of National Geographic magazines, which sat in a long band of yellow in my father’s study. My favourite National Geographic cover had the picture of a penguin which looked – to my child mind – like it was wearing a lifejacket. Lawrence of Arabia is different. I’ve been to the parts of present-day Jordan – Wadi Rum – where Lawrence of Arabia went, which is very similar to the parts of Chad we travelled to.
So, when I asked you to send five images that represented your experience in Ennedi, you came back with seven, saying it was impossible to select less.
I picked those because it’s a story. As a series, they capture ten days of the most wonderful unworldly experiences. The most amazing places are those that are furthest from the airport, and Ennedi is one of those places. Things here are extraordinary, the rock formations, the fact that you land on a bone-dry lakebed of cracked mud, taking a picnic right next to this rock art that is thousands of years old, the surreal experience of a tank half buried, or witnessing hundreds of camels being herded to water at an oasis by boys who make it utterly clear that they do not want their animals photographed. The first image is straight out of Star Wars, the next one is out of Dune, and the picture of the boy could just as easily be a character in the latter. This really is light years away from anything that one would usually call home. Such a rich unique place in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
The shots of the airstrip mud and the rock art are the same photograph, in so far as you illustrate the very oldness of the place by juxtaposing the old and the new.
Yes, the shadow of the plane with the cracked earth and the carpet with the paintings. That’s exactly the reason why I took those two. I think it is the role of the photographer to notice these things – not to describe it or explain it, because that’s boring. But to tell a part of the story that perhaps hasn’t been told. One of the things I do when I go to a new country is pop into the local tourist shop and make a note to avoid like the plague anywhere represented on a postcard. These two images are hopefully not what you’ll find in a postcard shop in N’Djamena.
What about the tank? What’s the story behind that? Some war?
Nicknamed the ‘Toyota Wars’. Libya decided to permanently borrow some land and Chad was understandably unhappy about that. I’m no historian, but I believe it invaded with 200-odd tanks, and was defeated by local Chadians, who attacked in their jeeps, hence the war’s nickname. Apparently, the tanks were unsuited to the terrain and their logistical backup terrible. They were easily outmanoeuvred by a lighter and much more mobile opposition, ran out of fuel, and ended up stranded, at the mercy of the Chadians. They’ve been decommissioned and lie half or fully buried in the desert. It’s a fascinating story. The desert holds many secrets.
As well as being accompanied by Will Jones, you were guided by Rocco Ravà, something of a legend in the industry.
What a character. We met his father and brother out there as well and hitched a lift back on his father’s plane. What I heard was that Rocco ended up here as a result of a childhood of exploration with his parents. An extraordinary life and thank goodness for the Roccos of this world. There is nothing in Ennedi that could adequately be described or explained by a book. You need someone with his passion and knowledge, to sit down by a campfire with, and to hear how things in this mad beautiful place got to be the way they are.
What is the single most important thing that makes for a great photograph?
Every photographer is completely different – you ask ten people you’ll get ten different answers. But for me, it’s what resonates and stirs up an emotion that makes a good photograph or what makes me take a photograph. It’s instinctive. You’re just walking around, minding your own business, and you see a beautiful light casting a shadow over something and you’ve already taken the picture in your head. I’m not the kind of photographer who raises the camera and points it around, taking pictures. That’s not me. Instinct, for me, is always the first thing, and then you record it with the camera. It’s not the camera that matters. You instinctively know what makes a good photograph – it’s in the observing-recording-edit.
What makes it a good picture for someone else is an entirely different matter. That will depend on their culture, background, on their hopes and dreams, on their fears and emotions, their passions. That’s me as well when I look at a picture. But when I take it, I have no idea about these things. I’m simply trying to capture something that moves me. It could be a line, a shape, or form, something seemingly trivial. This is not to say I don’t manipulate the image, decide to crop it this way or that, or use this or that lens, and think about what will make it more powerful or impactful. However, unlike other photographers, I never wait for the light to change. It’s a very instantaneous thing for me. I have to stop and record it. It’s most annoying for others, especially when travelling in a car, as I’m always asking to stop. That’s why I love to travel with the likes of Stanley Stewart or Aminatta Forna, who are most uncomplaining.
To be honest, you don’t want to muddy the mind [thinking about these things]. You really want it as pure as possible, like when you’re a child and your mind is so open and you haven’t started learning things, which destroys this openness and creativity – which is why I disagree with art colleges in a creative sense.
Tell us a little bit about working on the images following a shoot, which I understand from the photographers I know to be just as important as the act of taking the photograph.
The post-production part of the process is as important as choosing the right lens. In the past, when I was shooting film, finding the right printer was critical, especially with colour. I can print my own black and white, which is sometimes enjoyable and sometimes a task. The printer I used for colour is still working away, producing beautiful work for others, but I’m printing for myself on the computer now.
In the old days, I’d go through contact sheets with a magnifying glass, marking a chosen image in wax pen, ringing it in red – the more excited I was, the more I’d ring it. After that, it was over to my printer to work his magic. Now, it’s a different process, especially when working in-studio on a commercial job, where I’m often linked up directly to the computer, working alongside my digital tech, who’s been with me since the beginning, and who checks that the files are all coming in correctly, and tagging the ones we like.
The editing process takes me just as long as it does to shoot. So, for example, a recent ten-day trip took me at least two weeks just to edit, to work out what story I’m telling, how to tell it, and what kind of tonalities it was going to have to conjoin the images – that is, is it bright or is it dark? It’s in the editing process that takes you from seeing the story to recording it to deciding how much juice you’re going to squeeze out of it, which is just, for me, as pleasurable as the trip itself.
You’re known as a fashion photographer, but is there such a thing as a ‘fashion’ photographer?
Hardly anyone’s an actual ‘fashion photographer’. Irving Penn is everyone’s favourite, me very much included – he was just so ahead of his time in terms of subject matter, the amazing stylists he was teaming up with, the way he created his stories, the influence he’s had since. However, he’s not a ‘fashion’ photographer in so far as his images are always very, very him. This is true, I think, of almost anyone. Peter Lindbergh was an absolutely wonderful photographer, but he was never, for me, a fashion photographer. The clothes or who he was shooting for just weren’t important. He just wanted to get the mood across in a style – via a story and technique – that was very him. You came to Peter Lindbergh for a Peter Lindbergh. David Baily’s the same: he’s just doing his stuff and I don’t believe – you’ll have to ask him whether I’m right or wrong – he gives a rat’s ass whether he’s shooting for Vivian Westwood or Moncler. When Michael Kors was coming up, he got Mario Testino to be Mario Testino to actually help create the brand.
This is understood by the brands, who want the photographers to push their own thing, and know that when they leave them alone, the work is often stronger and more interesting, and full of surprises. For me, the only real fashion photographer is Steven Meisel. He’s more of a chameleon and can shoot for different clients and different labels, and do different fashion and utilise different eras, and he hits it every time. It’s not a Meisel picture: it’s the client’s DNA – he’s that good at understanding who he’s working for. I have a deep respect for his level of knowledge of and passion for fashion. I can’t think of one other photographer who comes close to someone like Meisel, he’s so on point.
Let’s end on your book The Phone Book, which is composed of images shot on iPhone, at a time when the phone camera was so basic it couldn’t manipulate the picture.
The point was to illustrate or shine a light on a little exclamation mark in the history of photography, one which came and went so quickly that no one really batted an eye. It was from 2007 to 2010, when the iPhone came out and before Instagram and all that stuff. One of the very first pictures I took with it was this boring fire escape in New York and I suddenly realised there was nothing I could do with it. I couldn’t focus, change exposure, or print it. I remember thinking that this was sort of similar to the moment of Henry Fox Talbot and his instrument before it became possible to manipulate those images, which is exactly what happened with later models of the iPhone. It was a very short time when its limitations meant that the picture’s raw emotional pull had to work extremely hard. The book tries to capture this little and easily forgotten exclamation mark, the fact that I was, for a brief moment, just as limited as Fox Talbot was, only electronically rather than chemically!
Why can’t I find you on Wikipedia?
Ha ha! Because I’m not famous enough. Although it amuses me to think that you imagined I could be. Instagram’s enough – more than enough. I try to explain who I am there in the images instead.
A big thank you to Alistair for taking the time to discuss and share his pictures of the Ennedi. If anything covered has piqued your interest, please do get in touch. If you’ve not already, do have a read of ‘Sands of Time‘. It’s a wonderful piece of travel journalism, with Alistair’s images complementing Aminatta’s words beautifully. For more on Alistair and his work, see his website.