Photographer Pamela Hanson has captured some of the world's most unique and iconic figures in fashion. Hanson recently released a new photography book, The '90s, featuring the pictures she took for clients, fashion magazines, and supermodels from that time period. Hanson reflects on the fashion and culture of the 1990s and listeners share their favorite '90s fashion item.
– This is All of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. In a piece about photographer Pamela Hanson, The New York Times asks this question: How did Pamela Hanson become the photographer of choice for so many women? Well, perhaps she's very, very good at her job. And because she strives to be empathetic in her own words. And in the 1990s, she's one of the few women making high-end images. In her new book, Pamela Hanson: The 90s, it features Hanson's images of models like Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and her good friend, Christy Turlington. The pictures are fashion-related from French Vogue to Mirabella, but also outtakes from shoots for Mademoiselle. And on the back cover of a book, a woman in stockings with seams running down the back and she is running down a non-gentrified street in the meatpacking district. It is very nineties. Plus, there's that, and a lot of smoking pictures as well. A sample of the photographs from the books are on our Instagram. You can check them out while you listen to this segment @allofitnyc. And you can see some photographs from the book in person in an exhibit at the Staley-Wise Gallery in Soho through November 8th. Pamela Hanson is with me now in studio. It is so nice to see you.
– Nice to see you too, Allison.
– When you were thinking about memories or feelings that you most associate with the 90s, what are they?
– I thought about it a lot, and I hadn't really thought about it before the book came out. I think there was an intimacy and a kind of we all grew up together, we were kind of like a family, and we ate together, and we shot on the streets and when we felt like eating, we'd go eat. I think there was just an intimacy, and I was the only one with a camera, because it was pre iPhones and was pre internet and I think that allowed a kind of intimacy and you didn't have to do, now you go on set and there's like behind the scenes and there's video, so there's not a lot of time to develop a relationship.
– That's interesting.
– And then, you know, we had time, we hung out all day, I hung out with the girls and plus they were close, they were friends, they were closer to my age and so as a team and with the editor, the stylists and the hair and makeup, it was just a very, and through this process I've run into so many old assistants and everybody was like, it was a family. And I'm sure that still exists on a level today, but I think maybe that's what the girls were so comfortable, and it was intimate and, you know, we just traveled the world together. We had an amazing time. We were very, very lucky.
– The 90s were kind of the last analog decade, and you shot on film.
– Yes.
– How do you think that affects the way the pictures, how we sort of absorb the pictures?
– Well, the quality is really different. I mean, there's no retouching in the book at all. I mean, some photographers that shot in studio like, you know, Richard Avedon, Stephen Meisel, I think did because it was very specific. They did certain retouching, but it's not the same as now. And I just think the quality of film is more intimate and more beautiful. And it wasn't instant. You didn't have people hanging around the computer looking at what you were shooting. And it allowed you to have some privacy and the excitement of seeing the contact sheets when they came back in a week and selecting the images and having just had much more time, which I think is true about everything today.
– How do you feel about retouching? It's something you're...
– It's hard.
– I’m curious what you think about it.
– It's hard because it's really hard to do nothing. I really try to do nothing. Then I've started shooting on film again when I can. I mean, now the timing is different. Clients are like, we're shooting tomorrow, and we want the images in two days, because they're just used to that. So sometimes it's hard, but I try not to because I really think, and if you look at all magazines, there's Helmut Newton pictures, the girl has bloodshot eyes, and nobody thought anything about it. But now I think our eyes train differently. So, it’s hard, but I’d really rather not, but I think it's really hard to do absolutely nothing.
– Why would you rather not? You want the image to appear...
– Just because I love people for who they are. I think, you know, I think we've gotten into this world where things, this idea of perfection, which seems completely unreachable which is why you see people that I'm just like why are you doing that to yourself? You know, age has got a whole different... So I think it's, you know, it's like trying to show the authenticity and the intimacy as much as possible is something I like.
– I'm speaking with photographer Pamela Hanson. We're discussing the book Pamela Hanson: The 90s, which presents a collection of Pamela's fashion photography from that era. You can also see her show at the Staley-Wise Gallery in Soho through November 8th. What was your camera of choice in the 90s?
– It was a Nikon and I also shot transparency film, which now when I shoot film, it's negative film.
– You're gonna have to explain that to me.
– Transparency is like a slide so I don't even know if they, I'm sure they still make it. But yeah, you know, I was very inspired by film, by movies, and that was what inspired me more than other still images. And I think we didn't have that many images. Now there's so much of an overload. You can see things all the time. And then to be inspired. So that was really my inspiration at the beginning was more cinematic and then it kind of developed. So it's giving the girl something to do and somewhere to go and film gives it more of a cinematic quality.
– Alright I want you to give us three films that we should check out three films that were important to you.
– The Graduate I love The Graduate, it wasn't even so much the fashion and all the French Nouvelle Vague you know A Man and a Woman, Breathless and I was living in Paris at the time too so obviously a lot of the films that I looked at with French and European network and the light in Paris is so beautiful.
– Ooh, is it different than any other place?
– Well, I think every city has its own light because this light reflects off the buildings a lot. So, in Paris, you have those kinds of warm, beautiful stone buildings. And so it reflects that beautiful, warm light. And it does change if you're shooting on the street in New York. It's much, it's also amazing, but it's just very different. It's more like bouncing off of mirrors or shiny skyscrapers. And it's interesting because it definitely gives an attitude or a, you know, an edge to your pictures.
– You're right. I can now that you said it, I'm thinking about photos that I've seen shot in L.A.
– Right.
– And they're brighter and sort of that it kind of comes straight at your eye because of
the light, the level of the buildings. That's so interesting.
– Yeah. The quality of the light is completely different.
– Ah, So wild.
– I find L.A. really hard to shoot in for some reason. I mean, on the street, L.A. is very much about the beaches and renting a location in a house or a studio.
– What about Miami? What's it like in Miami?
– Well, we used to shoot in Miami a lot. I'm sure they still do, but at the beginning of like the mid-80s, it was incredible.
– It must have been again off of the Art Deco buildings. There's a certain...
– Yeah, and the beginning that South Beach, there was only old people's homes and there was one hotel and all the photo shoots it would be down there, we would all hang out together, it was really... You couldn't even go like a block over because it was like gangs and gun violence. And now of course it's completely different. But Miami was great. Miami was a really good place. We used to go a lot in the winter because you have to shoot summer in the winter and winter in the summer fashions.
– What did you see your job as on a shoot as the photographer? What was your job?
– Well, to get the best possible image, but to work together with, I mean, I really love teamwork. And I think that's what it just really appeals to me. And when you have a great team and you have a great fashion editor and so, she'll be, you know, it's a discussion and a discussion with the girls. Like, let's tell a story. Okay, now you're downtown. Now you're running down the street. Now you're shopping. You have a baby in your arm. You're a busy mom or, you know, so my job was kind of to give it my own point of view but also respect what the magazine needed or respect the clothes, because the editor would be like, yeah, that's great, but the clothes look terrible.
– And also, you had the makeup stylist, you had the hair stylist. So, it did seem like there was a whole posse involved.
– Yeah, there always was, which was so great, because everybody was working to do the best possible image.
– As you went through your archives, first of all, where does your archive live?
– In a storage unit in New York City. And partially in my studio.
– So you go to the storage unit, you're going to go through your archives. Were you looking for anything in specific?
– You know, I started going through it because I was starting to scan all my archives and I realized that I had so much stuff in storage that I was paying for that I probably didn't need like negatives from some random lingerie catalog with, you know. So I started doing that and then I started looking at the pictures and often when you look back at things, at least for me, I was like, oh, that was a good picture. So I started just taking pictures I loved. So as I was editing out and going through all these boxes and shoots with my archivist, I started taking out pictures that I was, cause everyone was like, you should do a book. And part of me was like, does anyone care? And then I started looking and I was like, yeah, that's a- I like that picture, I like that. And I started realizing, so I just started collecting them. And then when I was done, and it kind of ended at the end of the 90s because of digital. And I feel like when I started shooting digital, it was a struggle to find my point of view. It was definitely, for me personally, a difficult kind of adjustment. So then I stopped then and then I gave it all to an incredible creative director called Joseph Logan and an amazing editor called Martinka at Rizzoli and it was twice the size. So we had to edit it down and it was very hard. I had to let them do it because I was like, my baby, don't throw that picture out.
– If you can do it with an objective eye, what pictures and the pictures in this book, what do they contain? What is it that you like about them? Do you like the framing? Do you like the light? Do you like the action? What is it about the pictures that are in this book that you chose them?
– You know, I was always really attracted. Like, I love this photographer called Jacques-Henri Lartigue, who's a photographer from the turn of the century, he's French, and he was the first one that I was aware of that did like women running or jumping. So I was always really interested in life. Like, I'll see something, I'm sure a lot of people do where you're just like, oh, that's cool. Or I'll look at the light or at that moment. So I think for me, was kind of what's, I don't know. And I had an emotional reaction to the images. And it could have been the girl or it could have been the moment. I was like, oh, that's really a great moment where she's jumping or, yeah, you know, not all the girls are super active because that's was so great too about the models is like you would, some of them would just be amazing at just sitting around and looking incredible and, you know, eating an ice cream and other ones would be much more animated and much kookier. So you have to kind of embrace that.
– I'm speaking with Pamela Hanson, we're discussing her book, Pamela Hanson: The 90s, which presents a collection of Pamela’s fashion photography. When did you first pick up a camera?
– I think I was like 14 or 13. My sister was into photography, and I wanted to do everything she did. So I got a camera and then built a darkroom and then I did, you know, the high school yearbooks and I just always loved taking pictures. I think part of it was also, it kind of creates a boundary. I don't know, it was a way of observing life and capturing life and I love people, and I love moments of life. So I just started taking pictures and then- I mean, I didn't even realize in high school, I went to a reunion once and they were like, you always had a camera. I was like, oh, didn't even realize that.
– When did you realize it could be artistry, that photography could be artistry?
– Well, I worked in a photography gallery after college. I studied art history. I wanted to be a curator. And I worked with a really, really one of my best friends from high school, worked in a gallery in Boston. I'd gone to school in Colorado, and we came to New York for the auctions. and we met this fashion photographer called Peter Strongwater in a bar and I was like, what's a fashion photographer? How do you do that? Because I was kind of trying to figure out how I could make a more immediate living than being a curator. And he said, oh, you become an assistant. So I moved back to Colorado to live with a boyfriend that my parents didn't approve of. So he got kind of disowned in parentheses. And I just found the local photographer and I was like, I'll do anything. So he was like, I don't need an assistant but come and returnsome fur coats or something. And then I worked for him for a year, and I started looking at fashion magazines. And I was like, oh, I like this photographer, and I like that. So Arthur Elgort was really who caught my eye for obvious reasons. You could see his influence and my best friend growing up who wrote the introduction, who we were friends since we were three knew him because she was modeling. She was an artist that was modeling to make money. So I met with him and he, I was on my way to Paris to visit her and he said, you know, you wouldn't make a very good assistant, but you speak French, and you have a driver's license. If you move to Paris, I'll hire you as a third assistant. And he was incredibly generous. And so I went on a couple of shoots with him, like four or five as a third and as a driver. And I started seeing how it all worked. And then I was like, this is fun. I like this.
– It's interesting though, that you wanted to be a curator at such a young age.
– I just didn't think you could make a living doing photography. So I was always interested in art history and my dad kind of collected old masters, none of any huge value, but I was surrounded by it. So I kind of was always very interested in art.
– Do you think your experience with art and your exposure to art transformed into your photography in any way? Or no?
– You know, I... I took a painting class in college, and I was really bad at it. And my really good friend who's now a painter was in my class and the teacher was like, what grade do you deserve? I said, an A. She said a C and she told me later, was like, couldn't you just say an A if you had a choice? So I don't know, you know, to be honest, I'm sure maybe, but photography is so visceral for me that I don't, it's not an intellectual – it's a really emotional thing. So I just like take pictures. I'm always looking and reacting to things.
– It's interesting. You mentioned your friend Lisa in the book, and she wrote the forward. It's really lovely. And it's clear that you've been friends for a very long time.
– She was my first muse. I photographed her all the time when I first moved to Paris because she was a model and I started getting these little jobs that I had to do.
– What do you what's the base of your friendship, especially one that has lasted so long in an industry where people can be frenemies very easily. But you and Lisa, it's clear that you have love for one another. What's the basis of the friendship?
– It’s really like a sister. We met when we were three. We were both ex-pats growing up in Switzerland, her family and my family. And I think it was just a bond. You know, we grew up in a kind of hectic, insane, but beautiful, but also maybe not the most straight forward childhood, so we just bonded and we just, I don't know. Again, I think it's just like something stronger than we are because we've stayed and she ended up, you know, working for Vogue in LA, running the Vogue. And our lives have been incredibly parallel. But yeah.
– Lisa describes how hard you work. She wrote, as I returned home at 6 a.m., she was often at the table making calls to photo editors. She was a pit bull hanging on until they realized she wasn't giving up, she being you. Um, why did you want the gig so bad?
– I don’t know, I really love taking pictures. You know, when you're young, I think you just have, I just had a drive and I just wanted it, so I would just go to see these art directors in Paris. And it was a different time, like you could show up at the magazine and I was like, oh, I'm in the neighborhood. Finally, they were just like, they started giving me little things like doing a portrait of a woman's garden outside of Paris. And so I started doing that to kind of keep taking pictures, and Lisa was a model, so she'd always get invited out for dinner and she'd always be like I have to bring my roommate and that's me. Maybe not what they had in mind.
– When you started taking pictures was there was there a gender divide among fashion photographers?
– I think there was, but you know there were some like strong there was Sarah Moon there was Annie Leibowitz, Ellen Von Unworth started right after me. I actually photographed her when she was a model when I first started. Deborah Turbeville- but I think a lot of their photography, Ellen I think has similar sensibility to mine, but it was much more mannered and created. Ours was much, yeah, I think there was, but I think it's true probably for everybody. If you've never been a guy, you don't, and I think there still is, and I think as in everything, but I try not to think about that, because. What's the point? I just say to everybody, just work really hard, keep your, you know, and do what you feel. That's the other thing that's really hard. Make sure that it comes from you and not from something you're trying to create somebody else's image.
– I'm speaking with photographer Pamela Hanson. We're discussing her book, Pamela Hanson: The 90s, which presents a collection of Pamela's photographs from the nineties. Some of the photographs are on view now at Staley-Wise Gallery in Soho through November 8th. If you'd like to see some of the photos, you can go to our Instagram @allofitwnyc while we're having this conversation. Let's talk about the gallery show, Staley-Wise 100 Crosby Street. Why did you want the gallery show to be the companion to the book or the book to be the companion of the gallery show?
– You know, it just kind of happened organically. The book happened. I'd been kind of ruminating in this book for a couple of years and researching and so then it just happened organically and they offered this the time that they had the space for it and we had talked about maybe having a show so it all worked out, yeah no I'm happy it worked out really well.
– How did you pick pictures for that show?
– Well, I had the gallery.
– (Laughing) I was gonna say come on now this book is pretty large.
– I know I know they I let them choose because I think they know what people are interested in the scene.
– You worked with so many different women. Did you have one model that you really enjoyed working with? You looked at the call sheet and you're like, yeah, I'm glad I'm working with her?
– Well, you know, Christy was an obvious and also an incredible person and still remains a really good friend. I actually really like shooting Naomi, even though she was often late, but she was still an incredible model. But all of them, I liked Nadja Auermann, I liked Anna Drummond, who was like a English model, you know, they're not all supermodels, I just, I really, all the girls in the book I had a connection with.
– You got to shoot Beyoncé.
– I did, yes. She’s also phenomenal.
– I was going to ask you for a couple of adjectives to describe shooting Beyoncé.
– Well, first of all, I've never seen anyone who works as hard as she does. It's not an accident that she's who she is.
– Yeah.
– And I had shot her backstage a couple of times, so I knew her. So I understood how she works and what she likes and what she's comfortable with. I mean, needless to say, it was incredibly easy because I think she trusts me, and I trust her. And Sara Moonves, who put that together, who owns W, who's also incredible. Yeah, it was really, really fun. It was so much fun. I mean, I could have gone on. She’s a very special person.
– Pamela Hanson's book is called Pamela Hanson: The 90s. The show is at the Staley-Wise Gallery through November 8th. Thank you for coming to the studio.
– Thank you for having me.
