In the fanzine-like book Hi you are beautiful how are you by Valerie Phillips, the photographer mainly focused on one subject – young Swedish artist, photographer and Tumblr fan Arvida Byström.
Apart from appearing in Phillips' just published new book, Another Girl Another Planet, Byström also penned its foreword in which she writes about her encounter with the photographer, about their genuine mutual friendship and Phillips' modus operandi.
"She meets up with her subjects to hang out with them, get to know them better while studying their universe," Byström states, "by letting her into your universe she'll show you a part of hers." In their case it was a friend who introduced Phillips and Byström, but the two met later on via Skype and eventually th photographer invited the young artist to visit her in London. The result of that first counter produced a series of fanzines and a book, Hi you are beautiful how are you.
Rather than revolving around on one girl, Phillips' new book includes a group of young and inspiring muses. Another Girl Another Planet (Rizzoli) – launched yesterday at Claire de Rouen Books in London – is a sort of Valerie Phillips compendium, it includes indeed work made over the last 15 years, images created for advertising campaigns, fashion shoots and personal projects.
There is consistency in Phillips' images: people who know her work, will easily recognise one of her pictures whether they see it on a billboard advertising sportswear or in a fashion magazine.
Phillips' photographs usually feature unusual muses – models, musicians, actors, family and friends – all sharing one main thing in common, a sense of freedom and rebellion.
In Another Girl, Phillips juxtaposes well-known names and personal muses with next door girls: one page may be featuring PJ Harvey in a pair of starry Wonder Woman-like pants, the next Arvida in her colourful plastic jewellery.
Florence Welch in a skirt decorated with tinsel strips or sitting on a pink wooden bench drinking coffee is the antithesis of a photoshoot with tomboy Juliet during her nocturnal bicycle rides.
Sienna Miller is portrayed licking a Doc Marten boot in bright floral prints; Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes) is pictured joyfully smiling in an harlequin bomber jacket; cute girls Monika, Lacy and Darya cheekily smile at the camera or play around wearing faux fur ears and tails, while another favourite muse of Phillips, Sara Cummings, turns into a urban superheroine in a Batman swimsuit.
There are models in pink dresses, their green hair clashing with their clothes; girls precariously perched on a TV set in anonymously boring hotel rooms, clutching their skateboards in a sensual tomboy pose, cavorting in shorts and boots in what may be a dusty archive, and wearing pony shirts on a background of paintings portraying horses (Phillips' fave animals).
At times the girls play with a cat or a dog, they eat chips, pizzas and caramelised apples or, like little Courtney, they are portrayed, in a brief interval between one gymnastic exercise and the next, her hands white with chalk.
Phillips tiptoes into their adventurous, energetic and dynamic lives, without imposing her persona on these images, but accepting to become part of someone else's world. In this way the photographer turns her back on the glossy and glamourous moods of fashion and beauty images in favour of a grim, gritty and urban reality in which shabby surroundings become new sets for unusual beauties.
One 12 year old girl who modelled for Phillips states on the photographer's site that whoever models for her will be relaxed because "they don't need to pose or be skinny or pretty. She likes them for who they are (…) Valerie wants people's personalities in the shoot so if you see one photo you know what you are looking at."
The carefree attitude and rebellious moods of the young women portrayed in these pages may not be what the mainstream suggests through its Photoshopped images, but, thanks to its realism, Another Girl Another Planet is the perfect volume for young photography fans and designers looking for fresh inspirations for their collections.
Another Girl Another Planet by Valerie Phillips is out now on Rizzoli.
Image credits for this post
All images © Valerie Phillips
1. Cover for Another Girl Another Planet by Valerie Phillips (Rizzoli)
2. Arvida, London, 2013
3. Florence, London, 2011
4. PJ Harvey, Los Angeles, 2004
5. Monika, Coney Island, 2001
6. Felix, London, 2015
7. Sara, Los Angeles, 2014
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