There's something very captivating about how you seamlessly shift perspectives in a shot to show the perspective of the talent and the environment simultaneously. How did you incorporate this in the calendar shots?
In some of the shots I wanted you to feel the way I was feeling when I was shooting the photo. And that’s why I picked that aspect ratio, because it allows you to see the artists very close but also to see the environment where they were photographed. It is not easy because you have to work with a certain depth of field and equipment that allows you to do that, but it was a challenge I wanted to take. And again I wanted to feel that if you make these photos really large, the way you would watch a movie, they would hopefully be very immersive.
Typically the world in which the character is in tells us a lot about them or how we should feel about them. In Revenant you chose the forest in BC for the bear fight scene because of the tall trees, giving an exaggerated perspective to Leo’s size and his vulnerability. This built tension and, I believe, an extra sense of marvel at his triumph. How did you choose the location for each artist’s in the calendar and what does this reveal to us about them?
I had a lot of conversations with the artists, the conversations at the start are very, almost feel superficial - where do you want to shoot? How do you want to be portrayed? What clothing are you wearing? And then from these conversations I can start to almost dig into their subconscious. And these took me into looking for locations. When I was talking to Ben [Harper] about his guitar, the wood of the guitar, the importance of this swamp came up. So I went to look for swamps that I could shoot him at - somewhere he was not going to be eaten by crocodiles - and I presented the photos to him. His reaction was very visceral, he said, ‘Yes, that is exactly who i am! The wood of my guitar comes from here and the sound of my guitar comes from here’. And even though these conversations were slightly esoteric in a way, not very clear, it helped me dig into who they are, how they see the world. Funny enough, I found out the location was a few miles from where the first slaves came to America, where music was brought from Africa - that became blues, that later became jazz, that later became rock, that later became Ben! So there were all these interesting coincidences that I think, even though I don’t like to talk about the photos or explain all these things, I’m always hoping the audience will pick up on or maybe I’m hoping too much, ha!