"A Night in Milan," 1985, photo courtesy of artnet.com
For Just Loomis capturing an image on film is more than just about shooting a pretty face or a couture garment. Loomis’ photography captures that rare moment and tells the story of his subjects - which are not necessarily
deemed as fashionable. Clearly this Helmut Newton protege knows a thing or two about creating an arresting photograph. And now Loomis’ documentary approach to photography can be viewed in
his first book “As We Are - edited by June Newton" which will published this Fall and at the upcoming exhibition “Three Boys From Pasadena” set to debut in Paris
on June 10. It’s no coincidence that Loomis’ career has taken a fine art
turn. While attending the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, he met
Helmut Newton. The meeting began a twenty year mentorship-friendship with the legendary
photographer and his wife June. “Three Boys From Pasadena” features the work of
Loomis and friends Mark Arbeit and George Holt, who all attended Art Center College of Design, assisted Newton and have become successful photographers with a unique point of
view. The exhibition, which was curated by June Newton, first
debuted at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin last year. It received
international attention and has now moved to Paris for a three month showing at the Act 2 Galerie. Loomis’ photographs have appeared internationally in
exhibitions, advertisements and publications such as The New York Times,
Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue Bellezza. A solo exhibition titled "Just Loomis: Walk Away, 10 Years of Photographs," debuted in May, 2009 at Lincoln Center in New York. His work has spanned the
gamut from shooting high fashion magazine editorials to shooting everyday
people such as waitresses in Los Angeles and Native Americans in his hometown of Reno, Nevada. Loomis first picked up the camera in 1975 at age 17 and hasn’t
set it down since. Some of those early photographs taken in Reno are included in his upcoming book. “As We Are” is a collection of contemporary American portraiture spanning Loomis' 35 year career. Photos include those early works of Native Americans on the railroad tracks, numerous
portraits of children and surprisingly very few models - the only nod to Loomis’ career as a
fashion photographer. Two exhibitions for the book are scheduled at the Aplanat Galerie fur Fotografie in Hamburg in September and at the Hiltawsky Galerie in Berlin in March 2011. Recently I caught up with Loomis to talk photography, learn more about his book and what it was like to work with Helmut Newton.
When did you start taking pictures?
I started in about 1975. My very first photographs were
taken in and around Reno. I lived in downtown Reno within walking distance of
the casinos. We owned a motel, restaurant and bar in downtown Reno
called The River House Motel. It was wonderful it was right on the river. My
family was not a big family, but my father was a state senator and they
entertained a lot. I always remember a lot of cocktail parties, and
professionals, lawyers and a few politicians as a young boy. We had a place
downtown so I would always go past the casinos and see the workers standing
outside or walking home in their uniforms.
What were the subjects of your early work?
I started doing photographs of local Native Americans at the
railroad tracks. There is one photograph that I’m very proud of that’s taken
during that period. There are actually ten pictures taken from 1975 that are going
to appear in the book. Having that as a base is very interesting because some
of them relate very closely to the kind of portraits and fashion work that I’ve
done over the years. From 1975 some of the very first photographs that I did are
very interesting because they’re very stark and they’re very straight forward
in sunlight black and white and they’re very raw and innocent which is what I
responded to. By the way, June Newton is the editor on this book. She signed on as "edited by June Newton" and she also responded to the clear innocent rawness of those
original photographs.
What launched your career in photography?
I went to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. I went
there when I was 19 and graduated in 1980. That’s where my friends Mark Arbeit, George Holz and I met Helmut Newton. That’s where it all started in 1980. We
started working for him and this continues to this day with June Newton through
Helmut’s passing. Now we’re very, very close with June and she came up with the
idea “Three Boys From Pasadena,” and curated the show in Berlin. She knew all
of our work and she figured the three of us together would be a strong and
powerful exhibition and tied to Helmut there’s lots of memorabilia from working
with Helmut.
It was up for one year in Berlin at the Helmut Newton Foundation and now it’s
moving to Paris to the Act 2 Gallery. So that ties into the graduation at Art
Center and then that basically was the beginning of a fashion-oriented career
in photography.
What are some highlights from your career?
Right after Art Center I went to Milan, Italy and worked for
Carla Sozzani at Vogue Spozza where I did my very first memorable fashion photographs. I did my
first cohesive series in Milan and I worked for Vogue Bellezza, Linea Italiana,
Mondo Uomo. These are some magazines that may not be in existence today, but
were wonderful nurturing proving grounds in Milan in the early ‘80s. In 1985 I moved
to New York and worked with Carrie Donovan at the New York Times. I stayed in
New York for 10 to 15 years doing fashion and then slowly during that period moving
away from fashion towards what I’m doing today which is portraiture.
How do you approach shooting portraits?
[It is] geared more toward documentary portraiture although
it has a strong foundation in fashion. The approach to the subject that I use I
think it’s fairly obvious for someone who really looks at my work….It’s hard
because sometimes you think anything to do with fashion can take away from a
fine art photograph because one seems frivolous and one seems more meaningful
and has more depth. But for me, I was always drawn to a beautiful face or an
interesting face delineated from a background and that’s in my opinion sort of a
fashion way of working.
What inspires you as a photographer?
What I find inspiring as a photographer is stories - people
and stories. I used to do a lot of still lives and I love that, but I’ve moved
away from that [now]. It’s a personal thing - something I’ve developed over
many, many years. It’s almost impossible to explain why I’m drawn to a face or
a situation, a person in a situation, the context of a person in a situation -
that’s what inspires me. Even on my drive over here I had to stop and take a
photograph of a man in a wheelchair that I saw on the side of the road because
there was something about it. It’s a very long process of an internal dialogue
and doing and redoing and looking and finding those things that are meaningful
to me. Also again, I’m always looking at fashion. I think I’m a big fan of
certain fashion photographs - not all. I’ve actually grown to not like certain
things that I’ve liked in the past.
How has your work evolved over the years?
The “Three Boys From Pasadena” exhibition in Berlin has really been a turning point
in my career in that I’m turning towards more of a fine art approach to my [photography].
In my fashion work I was always interested in telling stories. I was always
interested more in the model than the clothes. That was sort of the crisis or
turning point that I came with fashion. And so, after awhile it was more and
more difficult for me to be inspired simply by the clothes. It had to have
another dimension to it. It had to have a model that I completely connected
with and eventually I turned to doing documentary backstage. I did that [series]
for three or four years in Paris, Milan and New York. So I had models, but I
could choose the models I wanted. It wasn’t about what they were wearing. They
could be in their own clothes, they could be in the designer's clothes, but
I could catch them at any moment. It wasn’t just about the clothes, but it was
still about the girl. To me these girls were like working girls. They were
there to work, they were doing something, they weren’t posing for me, I was
observing them. So I figured let’s take that idea of working girls and I did a
series of waitresses here in Los Angeles catching real waitresses in real
restaurants. That was just an extension of shooting women backstage in fashion
and taking it into the real world and photographing them as they worked. It
removed the pretense of fashion. It removed all of their awareness of me and posing
for me which gave the picture a certain artiface which I began to grown uncomfortable
with - the fact that we were doing this as this sort of thing to present to
people. I wanted to just catch her or catch a person doing something that they
normally do. That’s pretty much where I am today and even focusing on a new
book, that is again the line that I’m taking on my new work.
What is the focus of “As We Are”?
The book is all people, mainly portraits. It covers 35 years. There are pictures
from 1975 to 2009. It’s basically a sifting of these 100s and 100s of
photographs that I have. These are the ones that June Newton and I sat down together
in February and went through 100s of photographs and chose 95 images for the
book. [It will be a 100-page book.] There are a few fashion
photographs in there. There’s a backstage photograph, there are some photographs
from designers MartinMartin, my dear friends. A few backstage from the shows,
very few though. June was very adamant and I was very glad that there were not
models put in this book that look like models. There are actually two or three
models in the book, but there’s more going on in their look, in their eyes, what
they’re doing. But we purposely put aside so many fashion model photographs.
What made you decide to publish the book?
How it happened was I put together a book for myself that I
took to Paris. I went to the fashion shows and I handed it to all the major
editors and [gave one] to June at The Chateau [in Los Angeles]. That was the beginning of
this whole thing was that book that I made. From that came the “Three Boys From
Pasadena” and from the show came the book now that I’m doing for [German
publisher] Hatje Cantz. They came and saw the show in Berlin and were
interested and that’s how the book came about.
What was the most important thing that you learned from working
with Helmut?
I think about that a lot. I think a lot of my photographs
are more of a reaction against a lot of fashion photographs and the way of
approaching a fashion photograph. I really would always strive - again [for] the story - but what I learned mainly from Helmut was a certain work ethic, an openness to
life, looking, observing. Whenever we would have lunch like this he would be looking
everywhere - the hat of the woman there, the way women were dressed, the way
they sat, the way they held their hands, the way they did everything. And he
would just by opening up my eyes to observe life and also to go back to your
roots to revisit where you came from for inspiration for your base as an artist.
To go back and pull from your past for creating work was invaluable. Obviously
that’s what’s in this book. A lot of it has to do with my childhood. There are lots
of photographs of children now that my kids are grown up. Half the book is
children. So that’s my roots. And Helmut was always one who went back to his
roots. If you look at his work he went back to Berlin, he photographed in
places he remembered as a child and where he grew up as a teenager and had his
first kiss and all of these things.
Do you think your work reflects his influence?
A lot of people from the exhibition did not see it as much
because I’ve sort of moved away into a more documentary kind of look. But if you
look at Helmut’s work he did a lot of those sort of photographs. When he worked
for Conde Nast Traveler, he would go on his own to Ireland or to Miami and
photograph. There’s a lot of documentary work in Helmut’s body of work. It was
another side to him. But I do think that there is this observation of life. There
is that in it and then in some of the technique the simplicity of the black and
white, the rawness of shooting Tri-X on 35mm in available light and making a very
strong print, certain technical things, but I think more so it has to do with
this internal thinking and the way of approaching a subject.
What was your most memorable experience with Helmut?
I really think the best time we ever had was going to Omaha,
Nebraska. He went out there to shoot the movie poster for “Indian Runner” which
was Sean Penn’s first movie. There was some problem with photographing Sean
Penn, he didn’t want to be photographed. So we spent the whole time driving
around, photographing boarding houses and trains at night and going to the
mall, and hanging out, and talking about photography and going through fashion
magazines and looking at all of them and ripping everything apart. It was a
very close and intimate time with him. That was I think the best trip because there
was no pressure on him. For Vogue the shoots were very tense. Everything was
very tense, everything had to be absolutely coordinated and perfectly arranged.
Here we were just wandering around being kids, photographers. There are so many
stories I could tell with Natasha Kinsky and I could name drop. But Helmut was
a kid. He was a true photographer he just wanted to run around the world with a
little thing [camera] in his hand and using his eyes. He always said to me drugs
are the worst thing in the world because my drug is my eye. I look. That’s how
I get my stimulation is through looking.
"As We Are" edited by June Newton and Just Loomis:
"As We Are" book cover
Waitress series shot in Los Angeles
More Work by Just Loomis:
Linea Italiana, Milan 1984, photo courtesy of artnet.com
Annabelle, Nashville 1988, photo courtesy of artnet.com
