This video is fairly short but serves well to introduce both the Watches supplement to the 2002 Vogue Russia, and the work of Eric Traoré. What I noticed recently, going through different fashion and photographers’ websites, is that in a bid to protect their content from unfair use they build the site in such way that it doesn’t allow you to save the photo off the page. As much as I understand this, some rethinking should be made, in my opinion, if only to prevent the re-distribution of content in the form of screen grabs. A gallery of images for public use, as I see it, will not only enrich the website, allowing for a fair doze of social bookmarking and sharing options, but will also assist at distributing the name of the brand or artist.
In case with Eric Traoré, there is a [very short] introduction to his work at LifeLounge with a gallery of public images. Traoré’s style is distinct, and as you will be able to see at his website he is often concerned with the unusual. This may not sound like a particularly innovative thing for a beauty photographer to do, but Traoré does really succeed at unveiling the ‘other side’ of beauty. There is, for example, a stunning image of a Japanese-looking girl with beetles instead of eyes… that is, until you notice that her eyes are closed and beetles are painted on the eyelids. Traoré works productively with the make-up artists, infusing the art of photography with theatrical effects. This is manifestant in his session for Elle (Beauty 1 gallery on Eric’s website), where an observant viewer can find a couple of reverberations of the ‘Venus at the mirror’ theme, as well as a hint at Coco Chanel’s famous photo (left). At the same time, his work for Harper’s Bazaar (which has long been one of my favourite magazines; Beauty 2 gallery) explores both the glittering and vain quality of fashion. This finds its expression as in images (right), as in make-up: a woman’s eye dressed in peacock’s shades – how about that for a pun?
In his personal (i.e. less related to fashion) work, Traoré continues studying the unconventional beauty and the restrictions of the world (including that of fashion) on the very concept of beauty. The photos in Studies subgallery (Personal Work gallery) are a superb example of this. His use of ropes in the Studies series also brings to mind Man Ray’s Vénus Restaurée and Blanc et Noir (left and right, respectively). A short article at Incubus Choice gives a summary of the series. The notions of insecurity, restriction and movement are further explored in the black-and-white NYC series: people and cars that drift or move chaotically between the sky-scrapers, the odd blazing ray of sun that gets in the picture, the ghostly sfumato-esque atmosphere. The buildings and objects are little more secure than people: the reclining skyline and streetlamps seem to be supported by the same effort than keeps upholding the Pisan tower. Traoré’s New York strangely reminded me of Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. The sense of restriction and the Gothic feel reach the climax in the photo of the tree branches. The picture at once reminds of the intricate imagery of the medieval manuscripts, as well as of the slender Gothic architecture – but the twisted bodies of the trees hint at the lack of freedom and at the same time call to remember the Mannerist painters’ figures and slim silhouettes of today’s fashion models.