RENE HABERMACHER PHOTOGRAPHS “POP”

QUARREY, ATHENS
POP MAGAZINE FALL 2011
photo : rené habermacher
models : anne kenny, alana zimmer
fashion editor : isabelle kountoure
headpieces: panos papandrianos
make-up: yanis siskos

This was posted by filepmotwary on the 1st of September, 2010
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RENE HABERMACHER presents THE TRIBES

Dear POP, while on the phone with photographer Rene Habermacher, I asked him to send me one or two stories for both my blogs, to feature.

I chose “The Tribes” for POP.

PHOTOGRAPHER: René Habermacher
STYLIST: Jean Luc Francaise
MODELS:Ross Tanner, NEXT London, David Asdrudal, MGM Pairs, Laurent Meri, BANANAS PARIS, Papis, MAJOR London
MAKE-UP: Eny Whitehead @ calliste, Akiko Sakamoto
HAIR: Tanya Koch @ B4agency
PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANTS : Vincent Lootens, Laurent Pascot
STYLIST ASSISTANTS :Nicole Aegerter, Lisa Stockland

This was posted by filepmotwary on the 18th of April, 2010
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RENE HABERMACHER presents TOKYOstrangers

rene habermacher

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This was posted by filepmotwary on the 16th of December, 2009
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INTERVIEW: RENE HABERMACHER talks to FILEP MOTWARY

Dear Pop, a darling friend and someone whose work I truly admire , photographer Rene Habermacher was delighted when I asked him for an interview. Rene’s  flexible talents and true ability to capture beauty  gave him a one way ticket to the world of fashion. Started as an illustrator, winner of numerous prizes, then followed a stardust-filled collaboration with fellow photographer Jannis Tsipoulanis and now he is writing a new chapter in his book, choosing to drive solo..Here is what he told me…
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FilepMotwary: Where are you now, professionally and personally?
ReneHabermacher: Right now, I am at the shores of the seine, on a warm summer night in beautiful Paris. Streets are empty and the remaining ones mingle in the few restaurant and cafe’ s terraces.
Professionally, it’s been a bit over one year since I’ve started working solo.I feel as though “phase one” of this process is over now, and hopefully “phase two” will soon begin, but right now it’s a bit confusing, in between those two times.
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Your so far career has been, in a way, a combination of controversial manoeuvres. You started off as an illustrator, an award winning one, ending up today being a world-celebrated photographer. How did you imagine your life back then and how far it is from what it is now?
Its basically the same- but for now i do enjoy a lot to share intense exchange with others in work. 06triad
something that i was lacking back then. Being an illustrator is a lonely profession…
Is it easy for your to tell me your story in numbers?
Hold your breath and count to ten, 
and fall apart and start again, 
Hold your breath and count to ten, 
start again, start again…
For several years you worked in partnership with Jannis Tsipoulanis. How difficult was it for you taking the decision to make the change and go solo?
After a long and very intense collaboration, it seemed time had come for both of us to follow our own paths and develop separate visions.
Easier said than done: this was a long process, difficult to admit the inevitable, and at times certainly painful. But along came renewal that was liberating for both of us. Naturally, as time passes the individual touch and style gets gets more visible.
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How different it is when working with someone aiming for the same credit compared to working alone?
I never felt the need to stand out in our cooperation. only the result counted. How it was achieved, or who gave the initial kick for something never mattered to me.
There is not so much difference from now to then. the teamwork remains, and with it the exchange of ideas and inputs, as well critic, that is very important to me.
I am very lucky to have since been able to establish great relationships with the people I work with.
Recently I came across your collaboration with Pat McGrath for “V”’s BEAUTY ISSUE. The result wasn’t very far from a fine illustrator’s work. I loved it. What was the idea of it..?
When Pat asked me to work with her on this project, she envisioned the digitized superhuman approach of my earlier work  for Numéro with creative director Thomas Lenthal.
But it was very different because this was not pure illustration but actual photography treated in certain way — and for me the difference between the two is very visible and the feel of this new work much more satisfying.
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Pat and I met in London to discuss the direction over lunch and immediately thought of Kristen to be the perfect character for the shoot.
To me she is probably one of the most inspiring models in fashion of the last decades.
For these images we thought of her as a glamorized Silvana Mangano character.
The great thing with pat is her precision on not only the work, but her references as well. i guess our common ground is an obsession for details and embellishing. and besides- she is just so lovable!
which is why i am very happy to have worked with her again on another project that will come out in September.

For a while you were living in Athens. Can you be honest about that experience?
I´ve always loved Greece and had great fun during the time i lived there. i still go back frequently, to see friends, hang out and sometimes go to shoot on location.
There is something very special about Greece that is difficult to find elsewhere- a sense for the archaic, the basic human values that i understand as universal.
of course this has its roots in ancient culture that has manifested itself in probably mankind’s purest form.
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Apart from that, I feel the Greek society´s parameters today are somewhat restricting to invention and therefore a limitation to creativity.
Though I find Greece inspiring, I felt increasingly suffocated by that, so last year I decided it was time to go for me to give up my loft in Psirri area and move on.
Looking back to the time I moved to Athens, i realize that the climate was so different from the one today.
Dimitris Papaioannou MEDEA2, through the eyes of Rene Habermacher

Dimitris Papaioannou MEDEA2, through the eyes of Rene Habermacher

A”Greek renaissance” was on its way- and there was such a driving dynamic…

that seems now entirely lost. only the contemporary art scene managed to gain some international significance. and few phenomenons like Dimitris Papaioannou, who’s work I admire immensely and I had the pleasure to work with on the imagery for his latest play “Medea2″.
Visually creative individuals like you often have a need for a getaway. Where is the place where you feel in complete harmony with your own creativity?
blackwidowvillage

The way you put the two things together don’t necessarily come in that order for me. What do you mean?

OK, let me try again. My English is so bad sometimes.. so…
Creative individuals like you, often have a need for a getaway to refill their batteries. Where is the place where you feel in complete harmony with your own creativity, ready for your next step?
Travels. seems the Gypsy blood running in my family asks its tribute mostly from me. When traveling I can let go entirely. I have no problem whatsoever to live out of a suitcase for months in a raw….
I was very fortunate this year, having had the possibility to spend time in Mexico, Kenya and Japan…  and not to speak of the food! Another passion, though a dangerous one for my metabolism.
Unlike the other nourishing impressions one is able to take along from a journey without paying for overweight.

What other things you do apart from photography? Can you share future or short past projects you get involved in?
I have my antennas everywhere. With Jannis we’ve produced a record some years ago, I worked on the interior design of a club.
which turned out to be a total nightmare, since it was unfortunately never finished properly (a very Greek experience!).
We basically stripped down the entire building except for its outer walls and roof, and built an annex to it. Walking away the project, I learned i could probably plan and execute a house as an architect. With a little bit of help by engineers of course…..
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Who is the perfect “object” to photograph? What are you looking for behind the personality you are commissioned to photograph each time?
My mother says I was born with a passion for beauty. And I am a very social person- so when you ask me what is the perfect object to photograph I think indeed above all , I choose people.
I would phrase them rather as subjects. of course I am intrigued by the physical appearance at first glance, but its all about the connection we are able to establish.
If i would parade all my “subjects” in front of my inner eye, it would be hard to even figure out what my favorites have in common- its perhaps their spirit and the emotions that count most to me.
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I remember a day with Maggie Cheung at London’s Connaught hotel- in the shine of only one single light bulb she lingered for my lens, lost in her own “story”- as she called it-
These images were so direct and full of emotion as nothing we had done before in the elaborate setting downstairs.
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Or Rossy de Palma on a sunny winter day in Madrid, an encounter our common friend Diane Pernet arranged.
Rossy insisted on doing her own styling and make up- an idea which made me feel uneasy at first I must admit- to blow me away with all compressed force de Rossy!
No stylist could have pulled what she created in a glimpse and what built the core and narrative  for several images. That’s when I got a clue what women like Rossy must mean to Pedro Almodovar and his work.
I enjoyed a lot working with François Sagat- I find him very inspiring and often think of him as being part of stories…. in different roles.
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Apart from his pleasant character, I find him very interesting, he is like a new male role model that we haven’t had in the past. A bit like Grace Jones for her time, that tore down many aspects of how we perceived and imagined women.
williamtell
Like her, François makes a great muse. Not only as being an object of appropriation, but a clearly intervening person. yet he has to find his voice, his ultimate stage for expression…. he’s a clever boy, I don’t worry for that.

Today, more often that before, photographers are accused for the way the capture clothes. What do you say about this? What is the reality of fashion photography?
What do you mean by that?
Well, do you agree that in a way, photographers care more about how the clothes help the picture become something less real, closer to a fantasy?
In the old days, it was important that a fashion photograph should help the clothes stand out..
I think fashion photography is to be seen as an abstract genre. its relation to reality is limited, even when it appropriates elements of real live, it remains entirely staged.
In the words of Susan Sontag “fashion photography is based on the fact that something can be more beautiful in a photograph than in real life”- we should not forget that.
Fashion photography to me is firstly there to enlighten, to form a visual manifesto in reference to all sorts of thrift weed of contemporary time.
Fashion itself is more than just clothes, its an expression of a very momentum. a reaction to the issues that our societies raise, quicker than any other discipline is able to.
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to a certain extent, social sensitivities and resulting behavior, manifest in fashion long before they get evident in other disciplines, as the arts, movies or architecture that classically respond slower also due to their production time lines.
Except music of course. that probably why fashion and music have always found each other in a philandering liaison.
Once a createur presents his collection the stylists pick up on it and with their interpretation nourish the designers again. Its a constant “perpetuum mobile” in which the photographer plays the part of putting the mere
Clothes in relation with life, captures the transient moment charging with emotion. of course the stylist is a very important transmitter.
Actually we should not forget that today a large part of the fashion image comes from the stylist who may choose the concept, the team and… the photographer!
The photographer has to find his place in this equation, and needs to have a distinctive point of view — that’s where the fantasy comes in.
daphne
What was it about photography that became your sustaining passion?
People. The very moment.
Photography has so many uses and effects.
I love to chase the oddity, to frame it, to develop it reflect on it, to title it and give it in this digested form back to the observer….

Your heroines and heroes are the prototypical of femininity and masculinity. It’s obvious that you have the same respect for both sexes and this is quite rare in fashion photography. Would you help me by adding some more verdicts in this?
It´s funny that you see it like that. To me, the sex of the subjects in front of my lens is somehow secondary.
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07achillesheels
It is true that in the ideal case a sitting is something very intimate, even erotic, but not sexual as David Bailey sees it- in my case i see that rather abstract,
like a seduction game. the possession of a camera can inspire something akin to lust, though when it gets too sexual, I believe the magic fades and the result lacks some vibrancy since the “attention” goes elsewhere….
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On the other hand i heard critics that my female models often don’t look very “fuckable” but somewhat idealized or even ethereal- is that perhaps why you phrase them heroines or heroes?
Yes, you subjects have this original identity each time, at least how I see them. They are very precise about the world or environment they are in. They look that they do not allow anyone to interfere with their space…
I love what you say, at the same time it worries me, since i am always concerned to spam the bridge to the spectator and involve him in an emotional moment…..
Some people say my men ´s stories stand out- and I must say that currently i enjoy a lot focusing on this.
Unlike women, that underwent every challenge on their way to emancipation, wear pants, burned their bras — and their corset — in the 60’s, the variety of men’s-characters are somewhat still limited today-
despite the fact that a man can now as well be seen as a sex-object, which is probably one of the most fundamental changes.
In terms of fashion, when it comes to representing the “official”, woman are way more liberated. they may wear gowns, pantsuits, miniskirts, sexualize or play prude- everything goes.
arnysarnyshoriz
A man on the contrary is “representative” only in a classic suit.
At the end not much has changed on this front. even in compare to early 19th century’s  fashion, one must notice the absence of a certain flamboyance.
There is still a lot of work to do- but i can feel a new current in this respect, this area is the last unknown and it excites me to explore it.
ariel2arielnazionale
Remember once you told me that you dream of becoming a filmmaker? Have you given up on this plan?
I have a couple of scripts for short films I am working on. And as well a feature film. yet it is in the stars when this will come to realization.
My agent gets asked more often whether I do movies as well- in order to cover a project as well from the photographic and the moving-image side.
Perhaps that is the future anyway- since with the shifts in the market the profile of a photographer is as changing as his outlets of display.
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I believe on of the outcome of the current crisis will be a redefinition of the media, with print magazines taking a different stance towards other podiums as the internet: exciting!
The ASVOFF film festival by Diane Pernet gives a good example on the new approach of short film and how the fashion world is about to embrace it.
What are you dreams for the future?
Answering this last question always make me feel awkward. The future is fading into past every now and its my aim to always enjoy that best.
Perhaps i am a classic epicurean in this regards.

Thank you Rene
tokyocrossing

This was posted by filepmotwary on the 10th of August, 2009
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