Warwick Saint :: Backstage

NIKE "ROCK VICTORIOUS"

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:47:00 +0000

A look into the Nike "Rock Victorious" shoot.

Picture Magazine

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:32:00 +0000

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

WHO IS WARWICK SAINT?

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:09:00 +0000

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

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:59:00 +0000

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

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:20:00 +0000

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

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:26:00 +0000

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

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:47:00 +0000

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

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:28:00 +0000

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.

ON A TUSK AND A PRAYER

warwicksaintstudio@gmail.com (Warwick Saint) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:27:00 +0000

In 1999, I had my career-breaking shoot. It was a perfect storm of luck, calling in favors, good-old fashioned ingenuity, and a couple of elephants. My stylist friend and I were shooting for some London weeklies on a shoestring budget in South Africa, after offering our services abroad for the same budget a studio shoot in London would’ve cost. I suppose we made it easy for the stressed-out, over-worked fashion directors. It was an offer they couldn’t refuse. And likely one less story they had to worry about.

Borrowing money from my uncle, I flew the entire crew to SA and put them up in my grandma’s holiday house for three weeks of shooting. Being South African, I was able to pull deals and production together and make it all happen.

All of this gave us the foundation to offer Dutch magazine a shoot with an African Elephant. We’d managed to wing a meeting with Matthias Vriens, Dutch’s editor-in-chief, and they were planning on doing an issue on skin. My mum just happened to have some friends with two elephants on their farm (trust me, that’s not all that weird in South Africa), so we offered up the “Elephant Boy” story, and he took it! So there we were, in South Africa, shooting for most of the London weeklies and Dutch magazine. It was an amazing time of hard work, naivety and intense creativity.

On our return in February, I was incredibly nervous meeting Matthias at the Metropolitan Hotel to show him the prints from the Elephant shoot. One of my Pentax 67’s did not work on the shoot so I only got half my film back! Thank God I shot with two cameras.

I don’t think Matthias expected to like the prints as much as he did, but the look on his face said it all. He held up a print, looked straight at me and said, “Warwick, this is the next cover of Dutch magazine!”

Wow.

I ran down the streets of London in amazement, positively elated. I dove into the first phone booth I saw to phone my mum and give her the news. The shoot was published—24 pages and the cover. That was it. I was on the map and on my way to where I am today.