Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies

Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

In this essay I intend to point out both contextually and graphically the side ways move the 1990s
took in retaliation to the glitzy capitalistic and decadence of the decade that was the 1980s.

But first we must remember what caused us to crave for a change to a cleaner more tolerant way
in which we look at today’s world. Shoulder pads no longer dominate our bars and Porsche 911’s
our motorways, when it seemed virtually imposable to walk down a busy street without being
overtly hit in the rib by a stray file o fax being wheeled around by a yuppie estate agent, not
concentrating on where he or she was going, as they were too busy brokering a deal on thair,
(what was then jokingly known as a) mobile phone as Pierce or Nigel their stock broker, tells them
“your stock has just plummeted 10 points, old thing!” then to follow a large number of obscenities
within ear shot of most of the UK. Yes, we had moved into the boom and bust, crisp and precise
and much smaller world of the digital age.

It was in 1990 when photojournalists saw a marked improvement in

technology by being able to save considerable time by no longer
having to spend countless hours both travelling to, and developing,
in the darkroom. This was largely thanks
to Kodak, who came up with a couple of
new toys such as their photo CD
arrangement and a digital camera
system that was aimed directly at them,
using a Nikon F-3 body and featuring 1.3
mega pixels, it was considered to be the first DSLR that started the Nikon F3 Kodak System 1991
digital camera revolution while in 1994 the Apple quick 100 camera was
the first to connect to a PC using a USB wire.
As it would seem the digital camera would become more and more
prevalent in the world of the media, with Nikon bringing out the D1 in
1999 which really took the share
away from film based cameras
and, in doing it, also competing
with Kodak.
Apple quick 100 camera

The world was relentlessly steaming towards digital imaging,

helped along the way with the début of Adobe Photoshop Nikon D1 1999
1.0 released into the market place in February 1990. This Program was written by Thomas Knoll
and his brother John, started in 1987 and first known as “Display” then in 1988 a refined version
of display becomes “ImagePro” Adobe strike a deal in 1989 and ten months later is released as
Photoshop 1.0. Abode Photoshop would change the way in which we would think about
developing photographs, and even speak about photographs, as since 1990 Adobe Photoshop has
given us the freedom to improve and manipulate images with the greatest of ease making the old
saying “the camera never lies” almost look redundant.

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Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies
Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

As it would become clear in a few cases especially in the magazine industry, where The National
Press Photographers Association tried strongly to protect the integrity of the photographic
journalist by both publicizing photo manipulation cases in its magazine News Photographer and
adding to its code of ethics.
“As journalists, we believe that credibility is our greatest asset. In documentary photojournalism, it
is wrong to alter the content of a photograph in any way (electronically or in the darkroom) that
deceives the public. We believe the guidelines for fair and accurate reporting should be the criteria
for judging what may be done electronically to a photograph. (NPPA, 1999)”
http://stephengrote.com/teaching/courses/files/storage/NPPA%20Code%20of%20Ethics%20and%20Digital%20Manipulation
%20Statement.pdf

Nowadays, nearly all magazine front covers are manipulated routinely to help them off the shelf.
While news, papers have one standard for news and sport, and quite another for features. It was
Nick Knight who said
It is very tricky now to really, honestly call yourself a photographer because a lot of what I do
doesn’t adhere to the rules of photography. For example, with the introduction of digital technology
and the more frequent use of that in the creation of the image, you are really not following the
rules of photography any more. A lot of what I do doesn’t always pass through a camera. I am
certainly not upset about that. I find that photography seems to be going pretty much nowhere.
I’m quite happy to see it’s demise – not out of any nastiness but out of a sense that the medium
that’s arising from it, that’s becoming the new medium, is much more exciting than photography. I
think photography has been wrestling with a burden of telling the truth, which I don’t think it was
ever particularly good at.
(http://www.opps.cn/word/?p=78)

Nick Knight was probably the most influential fashion

photographer in the 1990s, Knight had accumulated no less
than 12 major awards throughout the decade most notably
and recently the Moët et Chandon Fashion Tribute in 2006.
British born Knight has worked his way up through the
ranks of the fickle fashion industry and magazines very
quickly; coming from humble beings at Bournemouth &
Poole College of Art and Design. He graduated with a As seen above a fine example of nights Image
distinction in 1982 and by 1990 he was Commissioning manipulation,
1997
for the Alexander McQueen campaign

Picture Editor for i-D, going on to work for the largest

fashion publications in the world such as Vogue and Vanity Faire.
Knight has consistently challenged conventional notions of beauty and is renowned for his
groundbreaking creative collaborations with leading designers like Yohji Yamamoto and Alexander
McQueen. He has worked on advertising campaigns for what
looks like the who’s who of the clothing/fashion world. Christian
Dior, Lancôme, Swarovski, Levi Strauss, Calvin Klein or Yves
Saint Laurent to name a few. In 1993, Knight made fashion
history by adapting ring-flash photography to capture Linda
Evangelista for a landmark post-grunge cover of British Vogue as
seen on the left here.
Many of his images are cross processed (where slide film is put
thought a negative developer) but he was one of the first
commercial photographers to recognize the potential of the
digital camera and digital imaging.

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Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies
Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

Mario Testino had a very large impact on the nineties coming

from a humble family background in Peru with his sister being
a knitwear designer, Testino moved to London in 1976, he
started selling portfolios for just £25 which included hair and
makeup, to hopeful models, and would eventually bring to an
end the overly priced super model and hiring the lesser known
models at the time such as Stella Tennant and Kate Moss.
Testino now known for his "luxury realism" style gave, us
another iconic picture; one that may well represent all that
Diana, Princess of Wales 1997 Mario Testino
was good, clean and kind when photographing the late Diana,
Princess of Wales for her famous Vanity Fair cover in 1997; He has now virtually become the royal
photographer for Prince of Wales and Princes William and Harry. 

One of the major styles in the 90s was controversially named

heroin chic or grunge, challenging the perception of the
impossible high gloss fashion photography that we had come to
know from the 1980s, with a narrative going beyond just
showing the clothes and even so far as exploiting sex, very
often bordering on pornographic at times, with using down
trodden premises demonstrating a gritty grimy scene creating a
controversial factor to the images Juergen Teller, Wolfgang
Tillmans, Glen Luchford and self-taught ex model turned
photographer Corinne Day all used this style. Day’s 1993 images
of Kate Moss were said, by Vogue, to be unflattering, while
other critics accused her of being an anti-glamour snob and
encouraging anorexia, drugs, even paedophilia, and promoting
“heroin chic”. Day paid no heed and went on to take pictures that were somewhat alternative, and
highly personal documentary type portraits- with drugs, sex, and abandonment as dominant
themes. Some of her most successful work revolved around her close friends Tara, George and
Rose, and her own diagnosis, surgery, and recovery from a brain tumour in 1996.

Tara sitting on the loo, 1995

George in the bath 1994

Me just before brain surgery, London hospital, 1996

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Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies
Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

Georgina, Brixton, 1995 Rose 1993

Juergen Teller’s photography bordering on genius gives us some of the

most iconic fashion images of the nineties, and probably the most
prominent one of nineties is in the form of Kristen McMenamy shot in
1994. Indicative of the era with a tightly
cropped image. Teller’s remarkable
choices know no boundaries, from
photographing a frozen dog tossed into a
dustbin in Czechoslovakia to a ball being
dropped into a bath full of water. His work
shows a deep seated humour that is his
take on the world. "I am very pleased to
dropping ball, 1998 say today that I am a fashion photographer who does other
frozen dog
things” he says. (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-
entertainment/art/features/juergen-teller-fashions-provocative-
photographer-reveals-all-1724407.html)

Nan Goldin’s much acclaimed and highly controversial

work bears similar hall marks as a testament to the era
with her social documentary style of grunge or heroin
chic. Heroin chic couldn’t be used in a better place as
she herself started using heroin in her late teens. When
she was just 11 years old Nan’s elder sister, Barbara,
committed suicide,
“Barbara
’s death
is a vein
that
runs through Golden’s work.”
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/photography/5648658/Nan-
Golden’s ability to
Goldin-unafraid-of-the-dark.html )
photograph all manner of ‘sub cultures’ in New
York City is said to have influenced some of the
largest names in fashion photography some of
which profess to be her understudies, such as the
afore mentioned Juergen Teller, Corrine Day and
Nan Goldin, The Devil's Playground, 1996 Wolfgang
Tillmans. There
are clear similarities with many other photographers work, such
as Richard Kern, Glen Luchford Cindy Sherman and Collier
Schorr. This could define her as the procurer of this very art
form. Goldin’s ‘The Ballard of Sexual Dependency media show’
spans 20 years of work, from the 1970s through to the mid 90s,
and then again revised in 1996. It features drug addicts,
prostitutes, transvestites etc. Most of Nan’s best friends captured
in the bathroom, bedroom, clubs, and on the streets. One of her
best known works is that of a self portrait with a badly beaten
face that her boyfriend Brian had given her after reading her
diary. Her other works include the controversial Sisters, Saints &

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Jonana and Aurele making out, 1999
Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies
Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

Sybils, which was shot in the chapel of the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, the priest then
deemed it pornographic. Self-Portrait Writing in Diary During De-Tox (1989) Tokyo Love (1994), a
collaborative project with Nobuyoshi Araki, with Nan written all over it showing many lost souls in
a different society.
Quite apart from influencing the fashion photography, I feel that tidal
waves of her darker work has inspired photographers better known for
their pro-am sex photography which became an underground culture in
the 1990s At this time, pornography was moving society’s concept away
from the typical to a more diverse perception of homosexuality, group
sex, fetishes, bondage and transsexuals.

Mariette Pathy Allen became known for her images of transsexuals and
cross dressers, while Mark.I.Chester for his radical gay sex scenes and
Michael Rosen’s studios became synonymous with sadomasochism, erotic
Sexual Portraits 03 Michael Rosen piercing and gender play portraits, always adventuring into what had
previously been considered a no go area for most photographers, and
publishing “Sexual Portraits: Photographs of Radical Sexuality" in 1990, and "Sexual Art: Photographs
That Test the Limits" in 1994. These books have sold more than 10,000 copies. "Lust & Romance: Rated X
Fine Art Photographs", was published by Last Gasp of San Francisco in October, 1998”.

Michele Serchuk widely used soft focus

black and white images portraying bondage
and fetishes, in exploring the more carnal
side of the human psyche between gay,
lesbian and straight couples. Paul Dahlquist
was another one who also tended to use a
wide array of soft focus techniques, Sky ~ infrared candle1997 Michele Serchuk

emphasizing the body shape. Leah brought A. over to

play in front of my camera
one Sunday afternoon
Barbara Nitke fascinated by the SM scene. “Everyone I've photographed has Michele Serchuk

taught me something new about the nature of sexual desire, humanity, and the
fact that no matter how we're wired to express love, freedom is having the courage to be who we are.”
(http://www.barbaranitke.com/bio.html )
In 1994 she started work on her book Kiss of Fire: A
Romantic View of
Sadomasochism
(Kehrer 2003).

Vlastimil Kula
ventured into areas of
passion and rebellion.
Roy Stuart’s work
Ba
rbara Nitke Bathroom Kiss, 1995 explores voyeurism in
a passionate
forbidden way implying the man lacks any sense of taboo.
Selling over 500,000 copies of his Roy Stuart volumes 1-5
books worldwide, indicates that maybe a lack of taboo is
indeed what is one of our darker desires.

5 997ROY STUART
1

Avy, Villieres sur Marne 1995/2002

Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies
Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

Voyeurism seemed to find its way

into a more diverse fashion spectrum,
with Cindy Sherman typically known
for slightly off the wall self portraits.
Her work of historical portraits, in the
early 1990s examines voyeurism and
femininity through costume. In
order to emphasize the voyeuristic
Collier Schorr DIE ZWEI (SPRING BREAK),
1997 impression, the images were closely
cropped.

The fashion photography of the 60s and 70s would seem to be

repeated in a fresh regenerated way by Collier Schorr and Glen
Luchford. Schorr, with images portraying adolescent men and
women sometimes confused by their sexuality, while Luchford got together with artist and friend
Jenny Savile who had gone through having reconstructive surgery, and wanted to purvey the
agony associated with it. To illustrate this Luchford had her press her body against glass thus
producing a surreal mess of human flesh (1995) His anti-fashion work also had acclaim with the
Spring/Summer Prada Campaign of 1997.

Glen Luchford / Jenny Savile 1995

While staying on surreal images David La Chapelle dubbed “the

Fellini of photography” bizarre but yet beautiful images, are
created with the tools of today’s artists. the computer, lighting,
Photoshop, and a digital camera. Using them together, he
creates works of art probably even able to make a manic
depressive smile. His unique and humorous impression on the
world that we live in have gained acclaim throughout the four
corners of the globe.
Alexander McQueen & Isabella Blow 1996 He has manipulated
photographs of just
about every A list celeb in the English speaking world. La
Chapelle was discovered by Andy Warhol, who gave him
a photography job on his magazine, “Interview”. He has
gone on to win major awards throughout the nineties and
beyond. whilst working on major advertising campaigns,

Madonna: Furious Seasons 1998

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Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies
Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

fashion magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair, as well as numerous album covers, while also
dabbling into fine art photography.

Conclusion

The 1990’s were about coming back down to earth, with a newer model of an older concept
steaming its way forward. I can’t help but notice that some of the most influential photographers
of the decade all seem to have adopted a style used, for a very long time by the most notable
Henry Cartier-Bresson, known as the father of modern journalism. He took a very candid
approach to his photography, that of street scenes, and capturing a moment in everyday life, with
every day people. This is very much reflected in the work of Knight, Goldin, Tiller, Tillmans, Day
and Larry Sultan, just to mention a few.

During this period many of the pro-am pornographers were using similar styles for their work,
using what they had within their social / professional circles whilst studying what is a powerful and
emotional side of human nature.

The heroin chic took photography back onto the streets giving consent to scruffiness and disorder,
an image of life that we all understand; such a long way away from the manufactured studio glitz
of the 1980’s
The likes of Mario Testino, still satisfying our insatiable appetite to view high society, presented
with much more class, and dare I even say a lack of tackiness without a day glow accessory or a
shoulder pad in sight.

The Nineties have made it possible for photographers like La Chapelle to flourish there digital
artistic expertise on the world. I wonder just how obese we would all be without his later work, ‘
death by hamburger’.

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Essay CS1 Photography Time line 1990 – 1999 Contextual Studies
Stuart Williams September 21 st – November 9th 2009

Essay by Stuart Williams 2009

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