SNAPPING THE CITY


Kevin Davies is one of the most renowned portrait photographers in the world. But here he talks us through the ‘snaps’ he takes between his big name photo shoots


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evin Davies has shot portraits of rock stars and royalty, authors and fine artists. His work hangs in some of the most revered private collections worldwide and in the permanent collection of The National Portrait Gallery in London. He is perhaps best known for his portraiture of fashion’s most iconic figures, which means he travels around the world - a lot. Here are some of his favourite ‘snaps’ from the cities he’s visited recently.


‘At a certain point in my career I realised I was going to a lot of interesting places but hardly seeing anything of them. Back in the days of photographic film you always had to come back straight away to develop and deliver the prints. I remember being sent to Jamaica and thinking I’m going to stay here for a bit and take some photographs and ever


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since that time I’ve tried to include time to explore and take some photos. I always have an open mind when I go to take a portrait of someone. I don’t like to look people up beforehand or look at photos of them. So when I’m walking around a city taking photos I try to apply the same principles and not have any preconceptions or ideas about wanting to photograph a certain kind of thing.’


Madrid reflection


This is a significant cathedral shot in a different way. I was walking back to the hotel after photographing Stuart Vevers, the then creative director of the fashion house Loewe, when I caught sight of


this. I just like the idea of contrasting the old with the new and again viewing a much-visited city in a different way by showing a reflection rather than actually showing either of the two old or new buildings. It’s about trying to crop out as much as possible that’s not absolutely necessary. You can see the top of the building there but I’ve cropped out pretty much everything else so it’s just a shiny reflective building. There’s obviously a big difference between being on a commissioned portraiture shoot and then finding yourself snapping on the street with a single camera or phone in hand. So I don’t mind calling these images snaps because they’re more casual.


SPRING 2017


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