The photographer Ali Mahdavi was born in Teheran in Iran, in 1974. Now he lives in Paris, where he studied art at the École Boulle, the École Nationale des Arts Appliqués Duperré, and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
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| Ali Mahdavi |
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| Ali Mahdavi by Karl Lagerfeld |
I love his photos! Whether he photographs a model, an actor, a cat, or a crazy rockstar, he always makes them look good, getting the light to fall on the exact right spot. To me his pictures looks tasty, delicious! If it's glamour you want in a photo, go to Ali Mahdavi!
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| Tilda Swinton |
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| Ad for Cartier |
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| Dita von Teese |
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| Mr Pearl |
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| Dita von Teese in Thierry Mugler for Vanity Fair |
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| Dita von Teese for Cointreau |
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| Suzanne von Aichinger |
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| Betony Vernon |
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| Marcelle Bittar |
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| Marilyn Manson |
I couldn't copy pictures directly from Ali Mahdavi's home page. But there are
lots of more photos there! So if I were you, I would follow this link and take a look:
http://www.ali-mahdavi.com/
Do you happen to know Duchenne de Boulogne? I wonder if Mahdavi is inspired by him?
ReplyDeleteFor quick information, there is a reasonable Wiki page on de Boulogne: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchenne_de_Boulogne
A lot of additional photos can also be found on Google Pics.
You can see the French full text of his "Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine" (1876), including the very spectacular "Atlas" here:
http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38953
I didn't know anything about de Boulogne. Thanx for informing me! This is really fascinating, and I can definitely see that it's possible he's influenced Mahdavi. At least in some of the pics in the "art" category on Mahdavi's home page. I like how de Boulogne writes about the facial expressions as "an accurate rendering of the souls emotions", and as a language. It's not that hard to express emotions by the spoken language, but when you're standing in front of a camera, and the photographer needs you to express different emotions with only your face - sometimes just through your eyes - you notice that it's not so easy. But very effective if you get it right! :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, and mimes, actors, models, painters and sculpturers have lessons to learn from Duchenne de Boulogne, even today.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to that, I find his idea of the universality of the meaning of the facial expressions interesting. When it comes to bodily gestures, they are rather culturally context-bound. The idea that this does not pertain to the facial expressions, at least not to the same degree, is interesting—and controversial.
Wise words! I did some reading about 19th century physiognomy a few years ago, and I believe there are many things these old scholars talked about that actually makes a lot of sense. The problem with today's people is that they find things hard to believe if there's no scientific proof to it. de Boulogne obviously made a lot of contributions to the science and medicine of today. Maybe it's time people started to go deeper into his more controversial theories too...
ReplyDeleteWow these are exquisite!
ReplyDeleteDisse er fantastiske! Herlig blogg du har! Du skriver jo om alle de tingene jeg liker! Hurra!
ReplyDeleteTack så mycket! :) Vad kul att höra att du tycker om det jag skriver om. Jag antar att vi två har samma goda smak! ;)
ReplyDeleteVilken banan skulle inte vilja bli en banana split:) Jösses vilken fantastisk fotograf.
ReplyDeleteHa, ha! Nu blev jag ju faktiskt sugen på denna delikatess :) Och, ja, jag vet. Han é rätt så duktig... ;)
ReplyDeleteLovely pictures! I must say, you remind me a bit of Dita von teese.. not a bad thing :)
ReplyDeleteWhen people say I remind them of Dita, I take it as a big compliment. So thank you! I actually discovered Ali Mahdavi because miss von Teese mentioned him in some article. Wouldn't mind being shot by him at all... :)
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