Remembering an icon
Added 2021-06-23 09:33:20 +0000 UTCThe word Icon has been very much overused in recent years. With social media and sensationalist news has come a tendency to label something as the best ever, the most this, the most that and it drives me crazy.
So when I say that Herb Ritts was a photography icon, I mean it. He created incredible images that are still instantly recognisable and often imitated. The image of Djimon Hounsou with the octopus on his head is a classic example. Photographers and models have blatantly copied this but there is no point in copying a classic that is immaculate.
Herb Ritts is another photographer that I discovered in my late teens and didn't quite understand (pre coming out) why his work appealed so much. He had some seriously good taste in men, working with body builders and stunning athletic male models. Looking at his work again as I type this I see that he too liked to work in the studio as well as shoots in natural light. He was famous for having a rooftop studio in L.A. where he would shoot beautiful images. The secret to his success on the rooftop was L.A's smog filled sky which filtered the sunlight like a giant soft box.
The main image on this post is another recent purchase of mine which was the first of my buys to start collecting art. It's not an original piece but it is an authorised, authenticated print and I actually got a little emotional when it arrived. To own pieces of work by artists who have so deeply inspired and influenced me is incredible.
