NIKE "ROCK VICTORIOUS"

A look into the Nike "Rock Victorious" shoot.

Picture Magazine

Here is the interview that I did with Picture magazine for the Jan/Feb issue..

WHO IS WARWICK SAINT?

I know what you’re thinking. And yes, that is my real name.

So who am I? Well, let’s start at the beginning. I grew up in South Africa, surrounded by the photo industry since I was little boy. Some of my earliest memories are of my mum walking the catwalk and modeling on photo shoots. It was the mid-70’s—the days of soft filters and stockings over the lens—not that I had any idea at the time.

My dad was a graphic designer, and growing up, I used to work in his office on school holidays. When I was 17, he was tragically killed in a car crash. Being right at the cusp of deciding where I wanted to further my studies, his death had a profound effect on me, actually turning me away from graphic design and towards photography. I felt it was important to pursue my own path, outside of my father’s shadow (he was very well-renowned in the field of graphic design).

I knew a lot of photographers, and many of them had been mentors to me, so photography felt like a natural fit. I went to University and studied Philosophy and Art History, and assisted on lots of photo shoots whenever I could. At 23, I headed to London, and slogged it out through the rain and crappy weather as a freelance assistant.

Six years later, at 28, it was time to make the break. I teamed up with a stylist friend and we pounded the streets, taking test prints and one sheet story treatments to every newspaper supplement in London. We were “winging it” to say the least. Finally, we got our first real chance, when we managed to secure 6 commissions from the weekly newspapers for the total amount of 12000 pounds budget (2000 each). It was a no brainer for them as they got a location shoot in SA for the same cost as a studio shoot in london.

With the accumulated budget we took the crew down to South Africa, where we shot “Elephant Boy.” That job turned out to be the one that launched my career. And the rest, as they say is history.

CHEETAH GIRL

The followup shoot to my career-breaking shoot, Elephant Boy, was none other than...Cheetah Girl.



It was also shot in my hometown of Cape Town, and again for Dutch Magazine.

What made this shoot especially ground-breaking was that EVERYTHING was shot in camera--that means no Photoshop, no nothing! As you can see in the following video, cheetahs are freakin' fast.



We're talking 0-100 mph in 4 seconds fast. I only had four chances--FOUR--to capture the shot, as the cheetah is actually not made to run a lot--it hurts their feet and trainer only gave me a limited amount of shots.

The pressure was on. And I actually thought I missed the shot.


And true, the cheetah's head was out of frame, but it ended up being THE shot, because compositionally, it worked beautifully.







It was even more amazing than I had hoped for.

MY FIRST CELEBRITY SHOOT - DREW BARRYMORE

Drew Barrymore was the first “famous” person that I photographed. I was nervous, but in a good way. Usually, when things get nerve-racking for me, I get kind of “Zen” and adopt a relaxed focus. That definitely came in handy on this shoot.

The first task was convincing her publicist that the extra 30 minute drive out to Vasquez Rocks would be worth it. When we got to the shoot, the stylist pulled out some clothes and Drew quietly informed us that she would not wear any of it. It was Dolce and Gabbana, who has fur in their collection, and Drew doesn’t do fur. Monkeywrench!

The Zen was starting to fade.

The stylist sped back to LA to pull some more clothes as fast as he could. There was no time to lose! I stayed behind to oversee hair and makeup. Initially, Drew came out with way too much makeup on. I had to convince her that she was beautiful enough naturally and didn’t need it. In other words, take it off and start over!

Kithe, the stylist, got back surprisingly quickly with a little Moschino and some other PETA correct designers (hats off to Kithe, he pulled it off!). From there, the shoot went off without a hitch, and we ended up with some beautiful shots of Drew that to this day, I’m incredibly proud of.

After the shoot, I was having a moment with Drew as the crew were packing up, being my first celeb, I couldn't help but ask her what it is like to be so famous....she replied, " I have always been famous, I have nothing to compare it to. You tell me what is it like not to be?" She smiled.



AH, BACK IN THE DAYS OF FILM!




DREW AND HER DOGS

ME AND THE LOVELY MS. BARRYMORE

STEALING A MOMENT WITH EVA MENDES

The cover shoot for Latina magazine was the perfect combination of magic, nostalgia, and voyeurism.

Magic, because we shot at Harry Houdini’s old house in LA.

Nostalgia, because the inspiration came from some pictures of my mum her boyfriend shot of her in the 70’s.

And the voyeurism, well, you’ll just have to keep reading.

Before I go any further, I just have to say that Eva Mendes is one of the coolest celebrities I’ve ever photographed, and I absolutely adore her. She’s very relaxed on set and in front of the camera, and is really just a genuine person. It also doesn’t hurt that she has very nice things to say about me:


"Working with Warwick is a dream. I trust his vision and composition.

All I have to do is make sure that I have emotion in my eyes and he
takes care of the rest. He makes every photo feel like a work of art."

—Eva Mendes


But I digress.

In prep for the shoot, Eva and I exchanged a few emails, and she told me that she’d done a few sexy shoots recently and wanted to kind of step away from that this time around, which I completely understood.

I remembered some pictures of my mum from the 70’s that her boyfriend had taken—pictures which I think are gorgeous, as you can see. I sent Eva the pics as reference and she also thought they’d be a great inspiration for her shoot.




I wanted to backlight her in a garden of flowers, to give the images a vibrant, dreamlike quality. By using a long lens, you get a voyeur’s perspective, since I’d be far away, but still give the viewer the sense of looking through a keyhole (voyeurism). I asked Eva to be in her moment showing emotion, and I’d capture it. Shooting through plants gives you nice globs of color in the middle of the frame, a real sense of depth, and gives you the feeling that the viewer is hiding and the subject is not aware that you are there. So in a way, you are the voyeur, stealing an intimate moment.

Normally when I shoot celebrities, I like to be really close in to them, to get in their space, and be close enough to direct them. But shooting Eva on a longer lens, I was a bit further away, which made giving direction a little more difficult. So I just gave her the vibe, she did her thing, and I captured it, without her really knowing when the shutter was being pressed. I think that definitely added to the intimacy you feel in the final shots. You can check out footage from the shoot here.

COVER SHOOT: CHLOE SEVIGNY

The day before my shoot with Chole Sevigny for the cover of Tokion magazine found me writing frantic emails from airports in Nairobi and Dubai, trying to lock down a location. I was just returning from Zanzibar, where I was shooting the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition for South Africa (more on that in future posts).

I’d chosen the Standard hotel in NYC as a location, and thankfully, they pulled through. When it comes to actresses, I prefer not to shoot them on the inside of a ping pong ball. That’s to say, in a studio on a cyc, as opposed to a real environment they can really put themselves into and work around.

Chloe arrived looking super-fashionable, dressed in tight little, high denim shirts and kind of a cool t-shirt tucked into them. What impressed me most, though, was that she came by herself. No publicist, no entourage, no hair and makeup of her own. That really stood out to me because obviously it’s intimidating for an actress to arrive on a set and have her image in the hands of other people—and in this case, people she’s never met. She went straight into makeup and made it very clear that she didn’t want people to fuss over her. Chloe is a true New Yorker—not into all the hype and bullshit—so that was supercool.

THIS SHOT WAS ACTUALLY MY PREFERRED COVER BUT THE MAGAZINE DID NOT WANT TO GO WITH IT....HMMMM!

I explained the concept—the theme of this particular issue of Tokion is resurrection—and we got right to it. With Chloe, they were looking to get some sort of iconic image for the cover (who doesn’t want to do an iconic image for the cover anyway?), but it had to have some sort of resurrection theme.

I didn’t want to follow that theme too literally or narratively, getting into too much heavy religious iconography. At the end of the day, you are shooting a celebrity, and you have to make portraits of them. But I definitely steeped the portraits in that aesthetic, using resurrection as a reference, or a launching point. That’s why I used this sort of halo-y, flared light in the background. I tried to get that outside, on the bed, wherever I was shooting.

Chloe is unbelievably photogenic, and loves to take direction, as most actresses do, and she was super pleasant throughout the entire shoot. I am super happy with the way it turned out.

SOME UNPUBLISHED IMAGES




CHLOE IN THE SHOWER





A FEW WORDS FROM CHLOE

CHLOE AND ME

LADY GAGA AND THE ENGLISH PAPARAZZI

Stepping out of a car with uber-famous Lady Gaga into a swarm of English paparazzi was a unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Chaotic is really the only word I can think of to describe it.

On my night out in London with Lady Gaga and her entourage, we had a great dinner and headed out to a couple of clubs afterwards—Groucho Club and Bungalow 8.

Paparazzi have a sick sixth sense about where a celebrity might turn up—likely a network of informers letting them know exactly where celebrities are going to be on any given night. So not only were there 10-12 cars following us, but there were about 20-30 photographers waiting for us when we got there.

Gaga had just come out with her new single “Paparazzi,” which added a bit of tension, as you can imagine, so I think she was kind of looking forward to a face off with them.

So inside the car, she was like, “Hey, maybe I should take pictures of these guys,” and I said, “Brilliant, you should, they won't be able to get a proper shot of you.” It just frustrates them and makes her a little bit more unavailable, inaccessible.

As we got out of the car at Groucho Club, the paparazzi were firing their flashes as fast as they could. There must have been 20 or 30 of them, and every one of them had their fingers on their shutters. It was a mad, stroboscopic frenzy and we were right in the middle of it.

I did what I always do, which was to look down or look away. When the pictures hit the internet and blogs the next day, I realize that I keep making the same mistake, as you can see here. There I was, with my head down, looking away again. It's as if I am her bodyguard or something!! I never learn!!

I am happy that I don't have a famous face, but the next time that happens, when I am out with my celebrity friends, I’ll be giving my teethy smile with my best photo face on. I am not into the bodyguard look, double chin and all. I’ve learned my lesson. See the pictures on the internet

So to say the least, it was a really interesting night. It was like being in the hornet's nest of celebrity status.

Kinda exciting and kinda scary but a bit boring as well, to be honest. Not her company, just the repetitiveness of it. Every single place she went—the BBC, the restaurant, Groucho Club, Bunglaow 8—it was same thing again and again—the mad frenzy you can see in the video I shot of us arriving at the Groucho Club.




There’s also quite a lot of manhandling—you’re definitely shoving and pushing and getting off-balance. No wonder the bodyguards are 300 pounds, with all the paparazzi shouting things at her, quips, insults, whatever they can, trying to get her to reaction out of her. You really need a lot of man to protect her and the people with her. It’s complete chaos. But it is what it is.

You can see from the shots that showed up on the internet and on the blogs the next day that her plan to shoot the paparazzi back worked perfectly—her camera just gypping them out of that perfect shot.

And there I am... missing my poker face...uh...I mean photo face!





LEAVING BUNGALOW 8 WITH GAGA

LET'S GO GAGA

When I first met Lady Gaga, she was virtually unknown. There was no entourage, no international appearances, no gaggle of paparazzi following her every move.

That was a little while ago. Things are a bit different now.

Gaga and I met when I shot her PR work and album packaging a little over a year ago--check out behind the scenes footage from the shoot here. She and I got on really well from the very beginning, and we remained friends after the shoot, chatting and texting from time to time.

Since those days, Gaga has exploded into superstardom, which has been quite incredible to watch. As you can imagine, success brings a very busy schedule with it, so a good amount of time had passed since we’d seen each other. Then, in April, it just so happened that we were both in London at the same time, so we arranged to meet up. I’m sure she was happy to hang out with somebody she knew from before she was big and famous, and for me, it was a great opportunity to hang out with her SINCE she’s become big and famous.

When we’d hung out in LA back during the shoot, it was just a normal evening out. Nothing like what I was about to experience.

Gaga was in London doing the Jonathen Ross show, and she invited me to come watch her do the interview. So I headed down to the BBC, and went through security and the whole shebangy-boo. When I arrived, she was in the green room, so I didn’t have a chance to say hello until after the show. You can check out part one of her interview on that night here, and part two here, if you're interested.

After the show, I hung out with Gaga and her entourage backstage. They’re all very cool people—hair, makeup, a stylist, and mountains of clothes, everywhere!!! Obviously, Lady Gaga is very into her fashion (no shit, really?), and it showed here. The changing room was a heap of clothes, strawberries, champagne, and more clothes.

We planned on going out to eat and maybe to the Groucho Club afterwards, so I asked, “What’s it like going out now, Gaga?” and she said, “Wait, Warwick, you’re gonna see. Things are very different now.”

Leaving the BBC was a production in and of itself. We piled into the limousine inside the BBC, behind all the security—me, Gaga, her manager, her stylist, assistant, and another tour manager. As we pulled out of the building, before you knew it, there were about ten or twelve motorbikes chasing us down the highway. I hadn’t even noticed all the motorcars also following us, in addition to the motorbikes, because Gaga and her people were so casual about it. They were like, “Oh, yeah, there they are. There’s the paparazzi.”

Meanwhile, I’m looking out the back window of this fleet of cars and bikes trailing behind us like flies on shit, just absolutely incredulous.

But despite being so causal about it, I don’t think Gaga really likes it. I think she enjoys the spectacle of it right now because it’s quite new, but you can see it’s wearing on her very quickly. It’s to the point where she stops at a traffic light and there are guys on motorbikes shooting pictures in through the car window. It’s really quite rude, plain and simple!

We finally arrived at the restaurant—a very cool Chinese restaurant called Hakkasans, in Hanway Place. We had a great meal, everyone enjoying something of a night off, and then we were off to Groucho Club and Bungalow 8.

And now I was REALLY about to see what it means to be swarmed by Paparazzi—and not for the last time that night.


GAGA VS. THE PAPARAZZI-ARRIVING AT GROUCHO CLUB

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Though “Elephant Boy” was a success, when I got back to London, I was still flat broke, cycling around on my bicycle, renting a room from a friend in Hammersmith, and living on rice, some left over tomatoes and a couple of onions. Sure, I had the occasional home cooked meal at a friend’s house, but I certainly felt on edge. It was a weird time—here I was finally getting some attention, and though my career was taking off, yet I still barely had a pot to piss in!

Then one day, the telephone rang and on the other end was an advertising agency in Hamburg, requesting me to shoot a campaign for BMW. Me! How could that be? Before I had time to over think it, I was en route to Hamburg, leaving an all night party and going straight to the airport.

With a couple of hours to kill, I stopped into some generic diner, all the while wondering how the hell I’d ended up in Hamburg on a cold winter’s day, eating schnitzel and gunning to shoot a job for BMW. Again, no time to overthink. So I just went with it.



At the agency meeting, the art director came armed with a copy of Dutch magazine, opened it up to the “Elephant Boy” story and said he want me to shoot the car like this. Despite having no idea how to make a car look like pachyderm, I accepted.



This was my very first advertising job, and it was for BMW and I could choose pretty much anywhere in the world I wanted to go. We ended up shooting in Cadaques, Spain, home of Salvador Dali. I did my thing, everyone loved it and I was onto the next campaigns, which came from Diesel and Costume National.

Looking back, I realize I was so wet behind the ears then that I didn’t fully grasp just how big these projects were. I just did what I knew and it seemed to work. There have been many pivotal jobs in my career, but I would have to say that Diesel, Costume National and BMW were my first three big ones. And they all came so quickly, I really didn’t even have time to take everything in. After that, the campaigns I created for Puma were huge, turning into a four-year stint that cemented my career as a photographer and helped me relocate to NYC.