Ever Heard of London ?: Tim Walker: "Story Teller"

Thursday, 18 October 2012

Tim Walker: "Story Teller" - Somerset House

Greatly awaited exhibition, Tim Walker’s “Story Teller”, is finally open. Like every admirer of Tim’s work we ventured to Somerset House to experience the works of one of the famous fashion photographers this world produced.

We entered the first room of East Wing with expectation that most of the props in his photographs were a digital creation. But to our surprise we encountered a real size spitfire made out of polystyrene and fiberglass, used in the photo shoot for British Vogue 2009, which triggered a notion that the rest of his work is done the same way. Progressing onwards in the exhibition aforementioned notions were true.

Because of the presence of props materials and installations the exhibition evokes a feeling of being on a photo shoot set during which you can develop an understanding on how an image in a magazine editorial comes to be. This is also emphasised by enlarged storyboards from an editorial for Italian Vogue, where intriguingly scary giant doll was used (the storyboards can be seen on the photo where Ewa stands next to the giant doll).

When researching further about the exhibition I found that this show is really all about set design and close relationship between Tim Walker and set designers.

One might argue that props draw more interest than the photographs but I think they give an insight into the process of photography without revealing every secret of the trade in addition increasing admiration for a photograph.