Risky business

Great pictures happen when fleeting elements come together to form an aesthetically pleasing moment, says fashion and beauty photographer Ian Hippolyte. But it helps if you're willing to take risks, he tells Damien Demolder

- Damien Demolder

You mightn't think of fashion photography as a risky business, but in an age when loud people lay in wait for offence to come their way, the creative path can feel littered with political land mines buried just below the surface. With fashion corporations more focused on profits than ideals, marketing teams can be so cautious of what they appear to say, that they end up saying nothing very much. 'Fashion photography feels a bit safe,' says photographer Ian Hippolyte. 'It's supposed to be about expression and provocative - not in a sexual way, just about getting people thinking and talking about issues. There's a lot that can be said with fashion photography, and that's what makes it one of the greatest genres. It can campaign and reach people in a way that other genres can't. Now though we've got these big conglomerates that own all the brands and they don't want to be controversial and they don't want to take risks, so everything can feel a bit planned and a bit safe.

'That can take some of the art out of a shoot - things are often much less underground now than they might have been in the 1990s. I don't know if younger people don't want that as much as previous generations did, or if the people directing campaigns are just much more cautious. It's hard to rage against the machine when you are the machine, I suppose.'

Ian's photography, by nature, is some way from safe and traditional. 'There are lots of classic rules that people say you shouldn't break, but I never really followed them. I just broke them straight away. I don't agree that lighting has to be soft and I don't think it has to come from the front. You also don't need threepoint lighting - you can work without all that, break all the rules and still get great pictures. It can make people I'm photographing a bit nervous though, especially if they have their own ideas about the "rules" of lighting.'