The Work of Nick Knight. Insights in the lives of the ITS Jurors

ITS has collaborated with SHOWstudio.com more than once in the past, bringing Head of Fashion Film Marie Schuller in the ITS FASHION Jury as well as legendary fashion photographer Nick Knight, its founder & director, in 2014. A “pioneering website” as Business of Fashion describes it, which Mr Knight created “based on the belief that showing the entire creative process, from conception to completion is beneficial for the artist, the audience and the art itself.”

Several ITS finalists have collaborated with SHOWstudio, for example Aitor Throup, Ana Rajcevic and ultimately Yasuto Kimura who won the SHOWstudio Award in 2014 and is working right now on a fashion film based on his work.

Among the most influential and visionary photographers of his generation, Nick Knight has never stopped challenging conventional beauty, working with some of the most coveted designers (from Galliano to McQueen, Yamamoto and many more) and shooting advertising campaigns for the likes of Christian Dior, Lancôme, Swarovski, Levi Strauss and Saint Laurent, without even mentioning award-winning editorials on the most important international press and album covers Bjork, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Boy George, Paul Weller… For three decades now he has never ceased to be at the forefront of image making.

In his case “image making” is definitely a better definition than photography, since filming has become such an important part of his creative process especially through SHOWstudio, of which Hilary Alexander said “It’s the most complex arsenal of computerized weapons ever seen in fashion”. Mr Knight exploits every possibility provided by any technological improvement he can lay his hands on. At the same time, as he stated in an interview with AnOther Magazine, “the image capture device debate is both interesting and not interesting. I’m not that interested in the camera, more in the human engagement between oneself and the subject. What is really key is the person and what you are trying to convey about that person or get from them.” It is in a conversation with Imran Amed that he summed it up best: “Has technology made people more/less creative? Neither. If you’ve nothing to say in the first place it doesn’t matter how many tools you have.

Aside from warmly advising an extended visit to the SHOWstudio website and to its Vimeo page, there are, of course, dozens of options to discover the work of this undeniable gamechanger in the imagery field, the first being his personal website www.nickknight.com. But if you’re more for the real than the virtual, you should go for his publications, like Skinheads (1982), Flora (2001) or Nicknight (2009). If you are interested in image making it would be foolish not have at least one in your library.