One of the famous celebrity and fashion photographers on the planet is the legendary French photographer, Patrick Demarchelier.
More than likely you have seen his work as his work has been featured in many of the top fashion magazines, clothing advertising campaigns and also celebrities on books and music albums since the 1970s.
Now, let me first preface what drew me to Demarchelier’s work. For one, it was supermodels. His Vogue 100th Anniversary cover was one of the images that drew me to his work, also I absolutely love looking at Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington, Linda Evanglista, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Yasmeen Ghauri, Kate Moss, Linda Mulder, Elaine Irwin, Niki Taylor to name a few.
When it comes to celebrities, his photo of Janet Jackson on “Rolling Stone” was a popular image, along with his photography of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, Julia Roberts and much more.
Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC), is a famous museum of contemporary of contemporary art in Milan, Italy, has featured solo presentations of international artists.
The museum has a lot of history since the ’40s but with so much positive for the art community, the museum also suffered from a terrorist attack in 1993 which lead to the death of five individuals. Fortunately, the museum was able to rebuild and have had continuous exhibitions to this day.
The museum have released publications and back in Jan 18-March 12, 2000, the museum held an exhibition for Demarchelier, known as “Forms,” created by “Talk” magazine and its Editor-in-Chief at the time, Tina Brown, celebrated what was then, 12 years of Demarchelier’s fashion work, portraits, landscapes, especially in Africa, and animals, including Patrick’s Dog.
So, in conjunction with the exhibition, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC) released a book featuring Patrick Demarchelier’s contact sheets (or contact prints). This is a photographic image produced from film, used to show clients finished photographs via thumbnail but your client can scan through them and see what they decide that they like, or what your editor likes, etc.
As a photographer who have shot celebrities, I know how it is to take hundreds, whittle them down to dozens and then the artist(s) and their management choosing a handful. Sometimes for me, it’s a surprise when a shot that I like is not selected, and they go for something that was not my top choice. But I’m not a legend like Patrick Demarchelier who has shot the top celebrities, athletes and supermodels.
To go through this book and see the many photos he took from the iconic shots of Janet Jackson, Princess Diana, Robin Williams, Evander Holyfield, Demi Moore, Tatjana Patitz, Meg Ryan, Uma Thurman. Johnny Depp, Cindy Crawford and many more.
It’s interesting to see which photos were chosen and which photos were not. Especially when one shot of the many were chosen. It’s a difficult choice because Demarchelier takes amazing photos.
Now, if there is one thing that I wish this book, that it was released larger because the thumbnails are quite small. Granted, I can understand why these are presented smaller but if you spent a lot of your time admiring this legendary work of such an amazing photographer, you want to see why this photo wasn’t used or why this photo was used. Granted, I’m much older now and my eyesight is not the best these days, but I am grateful for what we were able to get and that is a look at Patrick Demarchelier’s contact sheets. Not many photographers would want their contact sheets seen by the public but in this case, the legendary photographer gives people a chance to see the other photos outside of the final photo that was chosen (and remembered to this day).
There is no wording or context of why the photos were selected or rejected, it’s a book full of contact prints and giving you a chance to see what photos were taken during the photoshoot of these A-list celebrities.
For some people expecting more, I can understand. But just for the fact that one is given the opportunity to see hundreds of photos that were not used of a legendary photographer’s work is a glimpse so few of us get to have.
While “Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (PAC) Jan 18-Mar 12, 2000 feat. Patrick Demarchelier” is not sold on Amazon, there are people selling their copies on eBay and if you can get your hands on a copy of this publication and love Patrick Demarchelier’s work, I highly recommend it!
