Abert Watson

Albert Watson who is amongst the leading fashion and ad photographers of the past four decades, showed last month his works at the A.Galerie in Paris. The exhibition just ended yesterday so I am in tears that I couldn't see it. This photography genius has taken stunning photos of so many stars and icons. In fact, he created icons showing them off to the world on more than 200 magazine covers.

Photo District News named Watson one of the 20 most influential photographers of all time, along with Richard Avedon and Irving PennWatson

Albert Watson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland  as the son of a physical education teacher and a boxer,a strange environment to develop love for such an art. He studied graphic design at Duncan of Jordanstone College and also film and television at the Royal College of Art while taking great care of his passion, photography, which he kept as a hobby.

He got a job as a teacher at an elementary school in US where he moved with his wife in 1970. When he photographed a portrait of Alfred Hitchcock holding a dead goose with a ribbon around his neck for the Christmas issue of Harper's Bazaar in 1973, he had no idea it would later become one of the magazine's and his most famous portraits.

At 33 years old he recieved a Grammy award for the photography of the Mason Profitt album "Come and Gone" and from then on, his career in photography took off. Vogue offered him a job in 1976 and moved to New York.Some of his works include advertising campaigns for Gap, Chanel, tv commercials and movie posters for movies like "memoirs of a Geisha". He took the majority of his photographs in trips all over the world.

 

 Christie's London auctioned off a collection of photographs which included works of Mark Seliger, Martin Schoeller, David LaChapelle AND Albert Watson. His 1993 nude portrait of Kate Moss taken in Marrakech was estimated at $23,000 - $31,000 but it was sold for $108,000, five times the low pre-sale estimate.

 

Watson received a PhD from the University of Dundee in 1995 and was inducted into the Scottish Fashion Awards Hall of Fame in 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For me,Watson's dedication and talent but most of all faithfullness towards his passion are unestimated values in life and I think that the secret of raising to the top is staying true to yourself all the way up.