here's the start of a feature length article on one of my favourite photographers Bob Carlos Clarke who pioneered a considerable amount of latx and fetish imagery into both fashion and advertising.
The naked truth about Bob Carlos Clarke
In 2006 the legendary photographer Bob Carlos Clarke threw himself under a train - a dramatic end to a troubled life. He left behind a portfolio of iconic images. Simon Garfield sheds light on the dark mind behind the lens
On 25 March 2006, the photographer Bob Carlos Clarke checked himself out of the Priory Hospital in Barnes, southwest London, walked a short distance to a railway track, and jumped in front of a train. He was 55, and it was a terrible end to a complex life. But, as endings go, it was not an entirely surprising one.
Carlos Clarke was best known as a photographer of women in a state of undress, a subject that obsessed him long before he took up a camera. But his reputation - as "Britain's answer to Helmut Newton" - hints at only a fraction of his talent (or his potential talent), and suggests none of the turmoil that governed his career. How else to describe him? He was fastidious about control in his professional life but reckless in his private one. He wrestled continuously in the gulf between commerce and art. He was terrifically explosive company. He was his own worst enemy.
continues here. do check out the links in the article as well as his homepage.
xx
1 comment:
How tragic,I recognize many of those photographs. I had a friend, just a year older than I, also step in front of a train 2 1/2 years ago. We'd drifted apart over the years and he'd spent 18 months in state prison on drug related charges, but friends told me he seemed upbeat and optimistic upon his release- two days later, one of them had talked to him on the phone and he'd landed a job, but an hour later he put his head down, walked around a crossing gate and right in front of a speeding amtrak passenger train.
I often wonder how many more are just a bad break or day away from that fate? Even ourselves?
Sorry to sound so morbid, but in light of Bob's passing I think dialogue on the matter is perhaps the best contribution to his memory- if even one more untimely end can be prevented- although I concede some would offer they'd prefer this to dying of old age.
Cheers.
Post a Comment