{"id":1704,"date":"2012-05-22T22:32:22","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T20:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/?p=1704"},"modified":"2012-06-12T21:30:04","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T19:30:04","slug":"hans-feurer-talks-to-filep-motwary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/1704\/hans-feurer-talks-to-filep-motwary\/","title":{"rendered":"Hans Feurer talks to Filep Motwary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
SELF-PORTRAIT \u00a9 HANS FEURER<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wasn\u2019t sure how the legendary, legendarily private photographer Hans Feurer would react to my call. But he answered with a friendly tone. It seems he was ready to talk, maybe for the first time in a while.<\/span><\/span>[br]<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was very hard for us to track you down!<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a bit of a phobia with anything virtual, like computers. I try to keep away, because I can see that humanity has totally jumped into virtual reality, forgetting or ignoring what happens to our planet in reality. I keep all of that away from me, so that my ideas are fresh and not influenced by the synthetic.\u00a0I have to use the computer to choose my photos, but I work with an analogue camera, and I read emails on paper but don\u2019t send them myself. I don\u2019t have a website\u2014I don\u2019t work like everybody else.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are in the States right now?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am really an artisan-mercenary. At the moment\u00a0I do a lot of editorial\u2014for French Vogue, Vogue Nippon and Vogue China. I have been spending a month between the Bahamas and Miami doing a lot of different stories.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

How did everything start for you? How did a Swiss native end up working for the biggest English, French and American fashion publications?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

(laughs) I have quite a history. I was born into a relatively poor family in Switzerland. My parents divorced when I was very young and I had to look after my two younger brothers, as we were in great difficulties. I was doing all sorts of jobs to find money and pay for my Zurich art school. Then I became a graphic designer and illustrator and left Switzerland for Paris. I was around 20 at the time and got a job at an advertising agency as an assis- tant art director, which quickly became art director. I then moved to London, where my career grew fast. I became art director of the Telegraph magazine and then creative director for a big agency. During all this time, I was taking pictures for myself, just as I did drawings. Photography was part of the visual experience.<\/p>\n

Around 1966 I decided my life needed a change, so\u00a0I bought a Land Rover and shipped myself to South Africa. I spent almost two years travelling through Africa, sleeping by the fire most nights whilst having a lot of adventures.<\/p>\n

\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I assume you were taking pictures too?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I wasn\u2019t! I was just living the experience, the magical moments. At one point I decided that the most exiting thing to do would be to become a fashion photographer, especially for all the beautiful women it involved. When I came back to England,\u00a0I spent the rest of the money\u2014after I sold the Land Rover\u2014hiring studios, experimenting with light, making myself a portfolio. It was around the end of 1967, and I was successful very quickly. I took off like a rocket. Don\u2019t forget it was \u201cswinging London\u201d; at the time, everything was possible. I immediately worked with the best magazines; most of all Nova. It was an extraordinary publication. The art director who created it, Harri Peccinotti, was a good friend of mine and I worked pretty closely with him right from the beginning.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

How different was being a photographer back then compared to what you are asked to deliver today?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

To me, there\u2019s no difference, because I approach it in the same way. When I started as a photographer, I thought a lot about fashion\u2014\u201cwhat does it mean?\u201d I discovered that it was a need, for women especially\u2014and for men, I guess, as well, though not\u00a0so much at that time\u2014to project their dreams or to become somebody else, to become whomever they wished to be. When a woman dresses herself a little bit like a prostitute, in a very promiscuous way, it is very different from if she dresses herself like a nun. So you can project a different personality through clothes. I guess it\u2019s similar to the carnival: if one plays a role for a certain time, one becomes it.\u00a0I got very interested in trying to discover the dreams behind certain styles of fashion. Whenever I do a story, I try to understand what the dream is behind it, and project that, maybe in an exaggerated but convincing way. I want the pictures to be completely believable, almost like if they were out of National Geographic.
\nThe other thing about my photography is that I never use any tricks. At the beginning I did some experiments with filters and so on but I quickly abandoned that. My pictures are unpolluted. I don\u2019t use filters,\u00a0I don\u2019t use reflectors, I almost never retouch. I want the pictures to look very real, and the people in them to be living beings, with breathing, sensual skin instead of plastic.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

How has your work evolved through the years?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t evolved, it\u2019s the same! It\u2019s the dreams that have changed; people and culture are always changing. But me, I still do the same dream projections; I photograph women who live a certain lifestyle in a very convincing way.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nova is one of the strongest examples of visionary fashion, even almost 50 years later. Why do you think it has endured?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nova was a very honest, uncompromising magazine with a lot of journalistic integrity. For example, a story I did for Nova back then, I photographed\u00a0a naked woman lying down with a baby rubbing some cream on her back. The article was about Johnson\u2019s baby oil, which was a very cheap product that everybody knows and you can buy every- where; the point was to show that Johnson\u2019s was as effective as a luxury product that costs maybe 100 times more. As a result, all the big cosmetics brands removed their advertisements from Nova. After a few other similar moves, Nova was left with almost no advertisers and had to close down.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you feel advertisers exert a greater influence on magazine content today, as compared to back then?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Totally! All magazines are dominated by advertisers; even the big magazines have most of their pages pre-decided.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are your fondest memories from your collaborations with Caroline Baker, Helmut Newton, Harri Peccinotti and the rest?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Harri Peccinotti is a friend. I just saw him in New York at this big gathering of the Pirelli calendar people. You know I did one of those in 1972. Harri, of course, was one of the pioneers, and he was there too as he did one of the first Pirelli calendars.\u00a0Of course then came Caroline Baker, whom I still regard as one of the most talented fashion editors, the most creative I have ever come across. She\u00a0was an unbelievable visionary. Once we had this idea of dressing all the girls in surplus army clothes and that created a very strong trend. Before, you wouldn\u2019t see women walking around in army jackets or pants, and then all of a sudden you saw them\u00a0all over. It lasted for many years. In those days you could really inspire people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Over the last 10 or 15 years many photographers have copied stories that we did for Nova. That is why I finally decided to do a book, which is now in its final stages. I was very lucky to have probably the best living creative director, Fabien Baron, to do the layout. I\u2019m hoping to publish it in spring 2013.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

What about your legendary tribal collaboration with Kenzo back in 1985?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kenzo was the first designer who really expressed love for all kinds of ethnic clothing\u2014the way African women dressed, Indian women, Chinese women and so on. He brought all these wonderful materials from all corners of the world. You mustn\u2019t forget\u00a0that this was also on top of the hippy period of\u00a0the 1960s and \u201970s. A lot of \u201calternative\u201d people were wearing clothes from Afghanistan, Native Americans, the Navajo. Kenzo was integrating
\nthis into fashion and this was what I loved the most about him and his work, as it was exactly what appealed to my sense of beauty, my aesthetic. So when Kenzo asked me to do pictures for him, he gave me carte blanche; he said, \u201cYou can do what you want!\u201d I had absolutely no obligation, nothing! Also, there was no art director, so I asked Fran\u00e7oise Ha Van [Kern], now a filmmaker, who was a very talented Vietnamese stylist. She went and gathered all the clothes and scarves and accessories from\u00a0the personal collection of Kenzo, we chose some interesting models and went away to Morocco,\u00a0or wherever we went, and we did the pictures. I decided to do some dream images featuring women from around the world, and we created a dream story, a fairy tale like One Thousand and One Nights, but in a modern way.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why were the 1970s so sexual, do you think? Why is your work so erotic?<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, you have to see it in the context of all the movements that were happening back then. It\u2019s\u00a0a long story that started with the beatniks in the 1950s, then \u201960s flower power and the hippies…all of society was breaking up. The world was throwing old stuff away and rethinking everything. So the \u201960s and early \u201970s were the years in which every- thing was possible. This slowly got suffocated in the \u201980s by total materialism.<\/p>\n

My work can be erotic sometimes, as you say, though it depends what it is for. I would say \u201csensual\u201d is more correct, though \u201cerotic\u201d is special. What I do is project human beings who smell; who are warm and alive. I try to photograph women\u00a0who are dressed in a certain way. I give them a scenario, something to do, and then I photograph it almost like I would photograph it for a culture magazine. For me, the thing that is the most important is to show a free woman who\u2019s scared of nothing\u2014a woman who has her own will and who is not just\u00a0an object of desire: Amazons, warrior women, free women not in the service of men. So sensuality comes along naturally.<\/p>\n

For me, beauty is interesting only if there is a disturbing element present, because that will give the measure for what is really beautiful at the end. Ugliness sometimes has to go hand in hand with beauty in order for beauty to be present.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you see any reflection of your childhood in what you do?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, not really. Although I was a very observant child even when I was very small. I remember when I was a baby in the pram, and the sun was coming in though the window on the pram\u2019s little veil, and a little fly was buzzing, \u201czzzzzzzzz\u201d, going through the light. I was always watching to see what was going on and I guess that\u2019s why today I do pictures in a certain way.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

So this is why you use the telephoto lens?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Philosophically I am a Zen Buddhist, and I have the tendency to simplify and eliminate so that at the end, it is only the essence that stays. The telephoto lens allows me to crystallise things and to leave things out and keep only what\u2019s behind, like the\u00a0scent of a perfume, an atmosphere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you shoot so far away from them, how do you direct the models?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Models can be convincing actresses. I talk to them beforehand about what I have in mind, about who they should become. Sometimes I take pictures of models posing, but on the whole, they come to life and become somebody. They walk, run, jump or whatever, and I document what they project from a distance.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You rarely photograph men\u2014why not?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am not so interested in men\u2019s fashion. If I could photograph a man who is really a wild guy or a true adventurer, then it is something else; I would like it. In the modern human race, it\u2019s the women who are the brilliant, colourful impersonators and performers. The men are doers; more in uniform.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You always sketch out each image before you shoot it.<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, when I think of ideas I make little drawings, because I come from that background. Usually\u00a0I have a little piece of paper in my pocket with sketches, and every now and then I take it out and say, \u201cLet\u2019s try this, or that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

You never want to be spontaneous on set?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I sometimes do, but I always like to work on a concept, an idea. I don\u2019t just go and shoot without knowing where I am going. It\u2019s like hunting. You would have a hunter that shoots everything that moves, from little birds to cows. I\u2019m not like that. I am very precise in what I want to do.<\/p>\n

Motwary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Are you ever afraid of failure? Do you sketch in order to control?<\/p>\n

Feurer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Always! Every time I start a series of pictures I am afraid of failure. I think, \u201cThis time it\u2019s going to be terrible and banal and boring and totally false.\u201d I\u2019m shit-frightened every time. (Laughs)<\/p>\n

[br]<\/p>\n

Interview originally published in Dapper Dan, Issue 05, February 2012; Special thanks to\u00a0Andr\u00e9 Werther<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wasn\u2019t sure how the legendary, legendarily private photographer Hans Feurer would react to my call. But he answered with a friendly tone. It seems he was ready to talk, maybe for the first time in a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[33,38,34],"class_list":["post-1704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-05","tag-fashion","tag-interviews","tag-photography"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QZgE-ru","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1714,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions\/1714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}