Mr. Bailey, it’s pretty rare for you to give interviews — I only managed to find a couple online. As a photographer, are you simply the type of person who prefers to be behind the camera?
I think so, yeah. I’ve never felt that comfortable in front of the camera, even though I’m expecting a lot from other people when they’re in front of my lens. I’ve always shied away from it, to be honest, it just doesn’t come naturally to me. But recently, I’m changing my point of view. And I think at the end of day, talking about the work or talking about myself as a person and as an artist, it’s all part of the practice. So I’ve changed my direction, you know, this year I did a talk at the Sydney Opera House and I have a new book coming out for Louis Vuitton that involved photographing strangers… So it’s all been a great challenge for me. It’s refreshing.
You mentioned that it doesn’t come naturally to you, but being a photographer also means taking charge on set, no? There’s not really time to be shy or soft spoken. Has that part of your job been challenging too?
Actually, no! It’s funny… When you’re photographing someone, or when you’re on a set, it’s a little bit like a performance. I have a very different personality on set, on a job, than I do outside of that. I definitely feel like it’s a performance sometimes because I’m really not someone that wants to be around a hundred people every day, but on set, it’s the job. I do have to build myself up for it, and at the end of these shoots, I really am exhausted, mentally. You have to balance all these roles as a photographer: if there’s a client involved, you’re talking to them a certain way, then you have models and you work with them a certain way, you have assistants so you have to be a boss. You have to be a technician, you have to have knowledge on all these different facets, you’ve got to be a fashion expert, you’ve got to know about hair and makeup, and then you also have to be an entertainer and a charming person. It’s a lot! So often when I come back from weeks of heavy shooting, I just retreat and spend time with my family.
“It’s a rush. I thrive on that, I enjoy it and when it works, which is not every time, but when you pull it off, it’s a real high.”
Is there an adrenaline rush that comes with that multitasking? Or maybe you’d call it more of a flow state?
It’s definitely adrenaline. For example, we did this shoot in Scotland with Harrison Ford, who was like my idol as a kid. And the day before, I’m on location, standing there, looking at this field, and it’s windy, it’s cold. We’re just sort of planning things out, talking about lighting, getting a feel for the place. I’ve got zero energy. But the day of the shoot, that adrenaline just kicks in and I totally operate on a different level. Suddenly I’m making decisions quickly, and my brain is functioning differently… It’s a rush. I thrive on that, I enjoy it and when it works, which is not every time, but when you pull it off, it’s a real high. I feel very exhilarated by that.
The photographer Miles Aldridge describes that chase as trying to capture a butterfly in a net.
You do have those days where you’re chasing it, yeah. But sometimes there’s also days where it feels really easy, almost effortless. And then the funny thing is that a month later when you look at those photos, you don’t feel anything from them. And the ones that you had to work for, where you’ve been chasing it all day, where it’s been heavy or stressful for you, where’re overthinking it… They can become the best shoots, and you have a different attachment to them because of it. The most successful photos don’t always come out of the easiest situations.
© Lachlan Bailey
Your photos are really celebrated for their candid, inviting, emotive sensibility. They have a very special warmth to them — but apparently that wasn’t always your style.
When I first started shooting, I worked for some independent magazines, but then I very quickly got into Vogue somehow. I think I probably went there too early, I wasn’t really ready to understand what a Vogue image is and how to make it polished. I tried to make everything really perfect. When I look back now, there’s some really nice things happening, they’re a bit cold and a bit too perfect, the light’s too perfect and I think they lack the same emotional sensuality that you mentioned. But then I moved to French Vogue, and I started working with Emmanuelle Alt. What she and the other editors at that time were doing really resonated with me, you know? The style was more lived in. It was more sexy. It was more like sensual and it pushed me a little bit. Everything coming came alive a bit more.
It’s great that you saw working with Vogue as an opportunity to grow — rather than taking it as a sign that you’d made it to the top.
You have to evolve, you have to change. You want to try something new. But then you’re like, what’s new? I mean, it’s hard because you want people to recognize your work when they’re flipping through a magazine or scrolling on Instagram, like, that’s Lachlan, you know? That’s what you want. But it’s hard now, there’s so many photographers and to stand out from that is really difficult. So there’s definitely a balance between adapting and challenging yourself, and doing different things… But remaining conscious of my style and not leaving that behind now because it’s taken so long for me to find it, I want to keep it.
It sounds like you’ve really developed a trust with yourself and your work. Is that trust something that’s also essential with your collaborators?
Oh, yeah, for sure. It’s really nice when you find a team of people that you love working with because fashion photography is such a collaborative process. When you walk on set and you don’t know anybody apart from your assistant… I can be a little bit shy! So I’m always trying to push for good support, whether it’s the stylist, hair and makeup team, the assistants, I always get the best results that way. But it’s getting harder and harder, because you have these stars and they won’t do it without their team.
How does the issue of trust come up when you’re working with actors? For example, your recent shoot with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi promoting the release of Wuthering Heights; they have such chemistry, but obviously they’re not really in love, so how do you go about constructing the trust that we see between them in the photos?
Yeah, I mean, they’re two huge stars at the moment and a lot is weighing on this film. All their people are very invested, there’s a lot of background noise. I also didn’t want to emulate the movie at all, because it’s not the purpose of what I meant to do with the shoot. When they’re on a film set, they’re working with a director and a script, they’re playing characters. But then they come to my set, and they’re playing themselves… It’s tricky, and it’s also probably a bit awkward because you’re right, they’re not lovers, they’re good friends. So it was about finding the right tone and the right line, I wanted there to be an intimacy and a sensuality… It was one of those challenging shoots. You just have to work with them and find that trust, I guess.
Do shoots feel intimate for you, too? Do you also share in those familiar and private moments?
To a degree… I think it depends on the situation. In that shoot, it was a bit less because it was so busy. The best moments are when the crew is really small, or sometimes you’ll just go out with one person. Recently I worked with a friend and we just went for a hike together, that was my idea, that we’d just go hiking and take some photos, and they turned out amazing, so beautiful because I know her, she trusts me, we have a really good connection… You get these quiet moments where no one is really speaking. It’s very different to a big shoot like the one with Margot and Jacob because there’s a lot of noise.
There’s an unpublished photo of yours on Instagram of the model Andreea Diaconu that really speaks to that quiet connection.
I know the one you mean, it’s one of my best memories of a photo shoot. I just had a really great connection with Andrea. And that’s the one good thing about Instagram, right? People get to see those unpublished pictures. Sometimes you work on a shoot and then it gets printed in a terrible layout or on shitty paper or the skin tone has gone green for some reason. But now those pictures can be published in the way I wanted, and they probably get more views this way anyway.
It seems like the best time for you as a photographer is actually taking the photos, while the rest of it — prep, research, editing, post production, even the final product‚ is more like a job.
It’s work, yeah. Pre production and post production I find really stressful, whereas the shoot day is the easiest part. Everyone is there, everyone’s working together, you’re building the photo, you’re looking in front of you and magic is happening. It’s the time where you stop everything else and you just focus on that moment.
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