Extrait du texte de Wolfgang TILLMANS View from above
MAGAZINE_FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY AS SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
Another thing that is important about my photographs — and which ties them to be what into the rest of my work — is the simple manner in which they are made. Even though I don’t want to explain the technical process, the fact is that they are very simply made and, as with my other pictures, I am interested in how I can transform something simple, or even something complicated, into something else.
... in 1990, or shortly thereafter, I started up to use people as actors of ideas or actors of their own ideas, like a kind of collaboration. I soon realized that photography is a good way to see situations that you would like to see, like scenes of togetherness, but can’t under "normal" circumstances. It’s a little strange to ask people "Could you hold each other because I want to see what it looks like?" But with a camera it’s not such an unusual request, because it is understood that taking a picture is a good enough reason. And this is actually one thing that I really enjoy about photography and have made use of ever since I realized it: a camera provides a good excuse to study things.
Q: Were the Lutz and Alex photographs structured as FASHION SHOTS in someway? They were done for I.D. weren’t they?
WT : They were in i.D yes. I realized that the fashion pages in i-D then, and only a few other magazines now, were pages on which you could actually publish pictures that are not subject to conventional editorial guidelines, whilst still reaching a largish audience. I love the immediacy and accessibility of MAGAZINES. Sometimes a magazine becomes a place where you can show pictures for what they are. And I employed the magazine as a catalyst to enact something I wanted to see, I really wanted to bring my ideas of sexuality into the context of i-D, to represent a man and a woman as partners, rather than the woman as the exploited one and the man in control. The man is, in a way, as exposed as the woman, since topless isn’t equal among the sexes; it is only equal when (as in these pictures) the woman is topless and the man bottomless. So there were a lot of ideas on clothing and attitudes that I had gathered overtime, which all crystallized on a single week end.
It seemed natural to use the context that was most relevant to my life at the time. So some of my earlier work appeared as FASHION STORIES, but these were not commissioned, but purely my own worK. I never had or pursued a career as a fashion photographer, but over the years I did go back a few times to fashion as a location and ever as a catalyst for my work. Most of my editorial work has been portraiture or social documentary photography.
