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Famous both behind and in front of the lens for his brazen, confronting and humorous signature style, Terry caught up with his number one fan Axel Moline for this one-on-one interview
YEN: So I’m told you’ve just come back from Japan – were you over there visiting Keiichi, your old assistant?
Terry Richardson: Yeah, I definitely was catching up with him … but I also had a show opening at the Hysteric Glamour gallery.
YEN: Oh right, as in the friends who helped out with your first book, yeah? What were you showing?
TR: The show’s called Manimal and we’re putting it on with Nobuhiko Kitamura (the Hysteric Glamour founder) who selected some of the shots.
YEN: And before heading to Japan you shot a Lee campaign for us Aussies, yah?
TR: Yeah.
YEN: Were you surprised to be shooting a campaign for Lee? I know that in America the brand has a less “fashiony”, more farm-boy style than it does in Australia…
TR: You know, Lee make good jeans, so I really wasn’t surprised at all. The client and art directors were fantastic and it really, honestly, was one of the best things I’ve done in a long time. Their aesthetic and my aesthetic just matched up perfectly and whenever that happens, you get great results.
YEN: What do you do when you don’t get this matching of visual ideas?
TR: It just makes life much harder. You still need to be as professional as possible and try to get
a good result for everyone, but it’s much harder.
YEN: I’ve had a quick look at the shots for Lee and it looks like everyone is having a ball. How do you make people so relaxed and appear as if they’re all totally fun-lovin’?
TR: You have to approach it from an aesthetic point of view, but at the same time you need to create an environment where people feel comfortable. If everyone is too uptight, I’m never gonna get the type of pictures that I’m looking for.
YEN: How do you generate that atmosphere – with lighting, incense, telling jokes?
TR: Ha! Um, yeah, I just try to get to know everyone before we get rolling.
YEN: Everyone you work with must be very aware of the zany, raunchy and wild nature of some of your most famous pictures. Do you get situations where the models rock up ready to get loose and you have to say “Whoa! Keep your clothes on, I want you to look like a Mormon in this shot”?
TR: [Laughs] No, not really. I mean, it happens to some extent… but it’s just like anything in life when people think they know you before they do.
YEN: Do you work with a specific team on gigs like this?
TR: Yeah, it depends on the job, but I always try to work with people I admire or am comfortable with.
YEN: Yeah, people come through as such characters in your shots, which really makes it feel like you would pick a model based
on personality as much as anything else. How do you go about casting people for your shoots?
TR: For me, I just really need to get to know everybody a little bit, even if it’s for the smallest job. I need to know what they’re like.
YEN: So it’s more than just a pretty face?
TR: It has to be – always. I’m involved in the casting 100 per cent, whatever the job.
YEN: Where are you off to next? Your agent said that you were heading out of town again today.
TR: We’re shooting for French Vogue.
YEN: In gai Paris?
TR: Ha, ha! Yeah, in Paris.
YEN: Now that you are such a jet-setting megastar, are you finding that you are only shooting ads and editorials? Are you getting to do much personal work?
TR: I’m actually about to start another personal project, where I am taking a Winnebago across the country.
YEN: Oh, sweet. Is that because you’ve split your life between LA and NYC and now you want to find out what’s in between?
TR: Yeah, it’s going to be “Terry Richardson’s America”.
YEN: How much time are you going to need to find and capture Terry’s America?
TR: Am guessing about two months. We’re going to follow Route 66 and then play it by ear, depending on what interests us… and the weather. We’ve begun scouting some locations and talking to people about the different types of “America” that we want to see and places that we want to get to.
YEN: One of the last projects that your Dad [famous 70s fashion photographer, Bob Richardson] said he was going to attempt was something similar – are you finishing what Bob started?
TR: Yeah, it’s partly related, but it’s more to do with photographers from his generation who had a desire to document America. And I’m trying to continue more of this tradition rather than anything that he started personally.
YEN: Has having a revolutionary fashion photographer like Bob as a father both aided and hampered your career?
TR: It hasn’t hampered me whatsoever.
YEN: Do most people assume that he was the one who got you into photography?
TR: Um, not really in the industry, as our aesthetics are kind of different; our styles of photography are very different. But in terms of the way we both allow a degree of freedom in our photography, he definitely gave me a respect for that.
YEN: Who are you taking with you in the Winnebago?
TR: Just a couple of my best assistants.
YEN: Your work, especially your personal stuff, has made you more recognisable than a lot of the models you shoot. Do you ever feel like you are becoming a character in a photo essay of your own life?
TR: Ah, the star of my own movie? Sometimes.
YEN: Did you think it was odd when advertisers started asking you to appear in their images?
TR: Kind of, yeah. I guess it just has a lot to do with what I’m focusing on and what’s happening culturally at that time. Advertising is a very complex thing and you need to approach it with a different kind of perspective if it’s going to
be a worthwhile campaign.
YEN: But because you are so well known today, do you find that you have a lot more creative freedom, even in advertising?
TR: Yeah, I have access to more and more jobs that appease me creatively, far more than when I was just starting out. So, on this level, respect for my work makes advertising much easier.
YEN: Does this mean that on jobs like Lee you’ll be given reasonably free rein?
TR: Yeah, it all depends on the job, but much more of the advertising work I am doing tends to be collaborative. I’m not just following a brief; we all work together. I try to give a good understanding of my thought process, but together you need to know what the market is focusing on and what it is that you are trying to accomplish with each photograph.
YEN: Regardless of whether you are working on Lee Jeans or Miu Miu?
TR: Absolutely.
YEN: Do you have the same mentality when it comes to editorial work? How do you approach a project for a publication like Vice, as opposed to something along the lines of Purple magazine?
TR: I try to keep the process as simple as possible. In many ways it’s similar to the way I shoot my personal work, and even the advertising. I actually try not to change at all between projects.
YEN: So much you read about Terry Richardson in the media is centred on the sexually charged nature of your work. Does it grate on you that you’re always described as “part pornographer, part fashion photographer”?
TR: It doesn’t grate on me. I would just say that, you know, that’s just the way I like to take pictures and this is just the way that some people view it.
YEN: Don’t you ever feel that people are missing some of the other great elements
in your work, such as the humour?
TR: Humour is very important in my work. Very important. It balances out the sexual nature of the images.
YEN: And other emotions are there too, but everyone always talks about the sex.
TR: Yeah, it’s true, but it’s up to people to understand the work. It doesn’t really bother me if they don’t.
YEN: Do you walk down the street and see mothers excitedly grab their children’s hands and say: “Wow! Look kids, it’s Terry!”.
TR: Yeah, [laughs] it happens. I have a fairly wide body of work out there now, so people recognise me.
YEN: Aside from your work, which is quite distinctive, you yourself are one of the most identifiable characters in the global fashion industry. You have a signature style of your own, right?
TR: Yeah.
YEN: Do you own 50 pairs of those orange glasses, or is it just one pair?
TR: [Laughs] Yes, yes, I have a few pairs.
YEN: I’ve always been a big fan of your tattoos. The SSA tat on your chest is from one of the first punk bands you played in, right? What about the others – do they have any particular meaning?
TR: It’s a mix between having some symbolic meaning for myself and just filling up the space.
YEN: Are you dedicated to one tattoo artist who you always go to?
TR: Ah yes, a guy called Jack Rudy from Anaheim, California.
YEN: Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that dude…
“the Artist from Anaheim”.
TR: He’s the greatest tattoo artist that ever lived. It takes about five years to get an appointment.
YEN: But if I ring up and say that I am a friend of Terry, I can get in sooner, right?
TR: IT TAKES ME FIVE YEARS TO GET IN! It’ll take you seven! [Laughs] He’s one of those guys who just couldn’t care less about who you are.
YEN: A real “ar-teest”, huh?
TR: Exactly.
YEN: I guess I’ll just have to try name-dropping you somewhere else then. Has your own celebrity become a creative hindrance at all?
TR: Not at all. In fact, it’s actually given me access to things that are interesting to me.
YEN: Super. Like what?
TR: Well, you know, you just have the ability to get access to people you really want to shoot but [who] otherwise may not be available.
YEN: Are there many people in the industry you are still really keen to work with, or have you found that you like to stick with the gang you work with regularly?
TR: Oh yeah, there are still plenty of people who I’d like to work with but, you know, over the years you form relationships and alliances and you know that you’ll always work well with [those people].
YEN: Your portraiture is one of your strongest bodies of work and the list of personalities that you’ve shot is pretty freakin’ huge. Are there still celebrities who you are desperate to get in front of the lens?
TR: I’d like to shoot Brad and Angelina…
YEN: How about their kid?
TR: Sure, why not?
YEN: Since the late 90’s you’ve been tagged as the master of “point and shoot” (no pun intended). Do you reject the notion that there is a simplicity to your approach, or is it something you embrace?
TR: Actually, it’s kind of half and half. Sometimes I embrace it, sometimes I reject it. It all depends on [the] pictures I’ve just done and the elements I am trying to feature.
YEN: You have a feature film in the works – Son of a Bitch – right?
TR: Ah, yeah. I am waiting for a new script to be finished. [The film’s] gone on hiatus until we get it back.
YEN: Tell us about your first solo and group shows at the Alleged Gallery in NYC?
TR: The Alleged Gallery was an exhibition space started by Aaron Rose. It was a great and integral part of that piece of New York City [the Lower East Side] and it was part of a very interesting time for me.
YEN: The beginning of more mainstream recognition for you?
TR: Yes.
YEN: That set of people who you were hanging out with in the Lower East Side and the East Village around the mid-to-late 90s – people like Mike Mills, Harmony Korine, Lance Accord, Thomas Campbell, Ryan McGinley and Chloe Sevigny – all seem to have developed into huge artists. Was this some sort of government experiment? Was there something in the water?
TR: [Laughs] I guess it was just a group of like-minded people doing similar types of things at the same time.
YEN: Were there other similar galleries starting up at this time?
TR: The Alleged Gallery was unique – one of the galleries that really had meaning and initiative. A place that would take a chance on unknown artists and would reject the mainstream programs in the rest of the country.
YEN: Are you still collaborating with these people?
TR: Yeah, I am still participating in shows that Aaron Rose curates.
YEN: Are the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village still hotbeds of talent for the next generation of artists to emerge from New York City?
TR: Not really. There is still a decent amount of artists coming out of the Lower East Side, but not The Village anymore. It’s too expensive.
YEN: So after you had your first shows and started to build a name for yourself, you received greater recognition from European magazines like i-D and The Face than you received from press based in New York – did this tick you off?
TR: No, not at all. It just takes some people longer than others to understand your work. There’s no point in resenting them for that. The difference is that American magazines just have a more commercial style. European editorial is much more image-focused.
YEN: Do you still play in any bands or ride your skateboard downtown?
TR: Yeah, from time to time, but it’s getting harder to fall off a skateboard and get back up again.
YEN: So now it’s more about Winnebagos than skateboards, huh?
TR: Exactly.
WORDS AXEL MOLINE
PHOTOGRAPHY TERRY RICHARDSON
