The Beauty of Collaboration

British photographer Tim Walker is known for his surreal, fairy-tale-like images, eclectic artistic influences, and collaborations with other artists.

As his close-knit crew—including set designer, make-up artist, stylist, wigmaker, models, casting director, and studio assistant—recently told me during my visit to London, Walker is the photographer they want to work with the most, since he encourages everyone to fully express their artistic selves.

Because Walker considers art institutions like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Getty Museum as sources of ideas, last year Getty commissioned him to create a series of photographs inspired by the museum’s collection. He chose two paintings: Dieric Bouts’s The Annunciation (about 1450–55) and Lucas Cranach the Elder’s A Faun and His Family with a Slain Lion (about 1526) as starting points for his artistic journey. 19 of the commissioned images will complement Tim Walker: Wonderful Things, a touring exhibition by the Victoria and Albert Museum that opened at the Getty Center on May 2. The exhibition in Los Angeles is generously sponsored by City National Bank.

Walker spoke to me about the process of completing the commission, why collaboration is an integral part of his creative practice, and how he often finds inspiration from centuries-old works.

“Looking at art from the past gives me nourishment,” Walker says. “I think it’s a very sexy treasure hunt. There’s no better place to seek out something that might spark a vision in your head.”

Here are some of my other favorite quotes from our interview and five of the commissioned artworks.

“When you’re a fashion photographer, you become acutely aware of fabric and how fabric falls and how it’s cut and how it sits on a person. For me, The Annunciation is about the beauty and finesse of a depiction of fabric. But when you’ve been photographing people in dress for so long, the beauty of nudity is very inspiring. As a fashion photographer, it was always about clothes. I think the freedom of nudity is humankind at its most beautiful.

“I had always been really taken with Cranach’s paintings, and interested in the body shapes of the women he painted: very narrow shoulders and then a big belly and wide hips, and then down into very skinny, skinny, skinny legs. When I first saw them, I found them quite ugly. And then I questioned why I found them ugly. But when I went to the Getty Museum, I saw them as something so supremely beautiful. That body shape, the depiction of feminine faces with very thin eyebrows, the very translucent skin.”

“I spend a lot of time preparing for a shoot. I spend three months thinking about how we’re going to make the pictures. I’ll speak to Shona Heath, my set designer, about the set, and to the hairstylist, the makeup artist, and the stylist, and get everyone into the mood of what I’m trying to articulate. But then you just want people to be let off the leash of your imagination and to give you something back. You can really feel that the project’s coming to life.

“The biggest challenge is always that reality you’re fighting. You go to the studio, look through the camera, and it looks too flat and real. There’s no magic. And the magic of the painting that’s inspiring us all is palpable, and I worry that I can’t make the photography rise to that level. You just have to keep photographing, keep working with the people in front of you, keep moving around. You keep getting people to stand here, sit here. Let’s try that on. Let’s change the light. And then finally a photograph happens.”

“This photograph was the first one that showed me where the shoot could go. Like, ‘There you go, the door’s open. We all know what we’re doing now.’ The whole process of photography is very chaotic and unformulaic. There’s no rhyme or reason to why things work. You just sweat and sit it out until the magic happens. The thing that makes this picture for me is my camera lens. I have a dial that can turn the picture from blue to yellow. I saw the camera slip in my hand, and then the yellow came on and I carried on taking pictures without realizing that the filter that casts a greeny, yellowy light was on. Then Shona threw the peaches in and suddenly the peaches mirrored the hair. The simplicity of that picture was exactly what I was trying to say.”

“The wig Pablo Kümin made for Salvia, the model, became the character Salvia was playing. The wig really dictated that because it sits on the head and if you move it too far back, it falls off. It’s like that finishing school thing where you have to walk and balance a book on your head. You’ve got to be very, very steady. That kind of gave Salvia her character. I look at transgender people [like Salvia] and I’m always impressed at them pushing boundaries and making new possibilities. They’re really pioneers. They’re light bringers of what could be possible for the future.”

“I think a fundamental word in photography is playing, and I think people can only really play when there’s a relaxed atmosphere. I think being photographed is intimidating. I think it’s about making an environment that’s friendly and relaxed and human and caring. You really want people to forget about the camera and do something true to them. Just let people play and experiment and enjoy exploring their ability.”