David Hamilton: biography, photo albums, film work

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:46

David Hamilton is a British-born French photographer. He became famous thanks to a series of photographs of teenage girls. No one is indifferent to his work: fans are ready to buy pictures for fabulous money, and opponents threaten to bring him to court. Be that as it may, scandal always attracts attention, and David Hamilton has become one of the most famous and talked about photographers of our time.

Biography

In April 1933, David Hamilton was born in Great Britain. The war found him a schoolboy, the family had to be evacuated from London. However, after the conclusion of peace, they returned here again, and when David graduated from school, they all moved to Paris together. France has become the second home of the photographer.

Hamilton briefly worked as an architect, then as a designer at ELLE. At the beginning of his creative activity, he was engaged in advertising and commercial photography. Career rapidly developed, and soon Hamilton took the post of art director at Queen, and a little later - at Printemps. Success quickly came to him. Worksprinted in magazines all over Europe, the corporate identity became easily recognizable. Until now, the photographer holds exhibitions and publishes albums. His track record also includes 6 films. He has had a great influence on many modern photographers and filmmakers, which they readily admit.

Hamilton Style

Typically, David Hamilton shoots teenage girls or very young women. A model with flowing hair, in light draped clothes or without them at all, with almost no makeup, appears as the embodiment of innocence. Soft light emphasizes the naturalness and ease of images. The footage is imbued with hippie romanticism and retro nostalgia. You can unmistakably distinguish Hamilton's work by blurry focus and coarse grain.

In his works, Hamilton captures that amazing moment when sensuality awakens in a girl and she becomes a woman. In terms of art and artistic expression, his photographs are excellent. Excellent mastery of technique, well-balanced composition, soft harmonious coloring are combined with that elusive feeling that is called the atmosphere. However, there is also a moral aspect: is it acceptable to portray girls, almost children, in such images?

Scandal Photographer

Eroticism in Hamilton's work is visible to the naked eye. It would seem that he is not the first and he is not the last who works in this specific genre. The piquancy of the situation is given by the fact that the photographer's favorite models are teenage girls. Art or not, society has not yet decided. If in the seventiesyears, the attitude towards sex and erotica was more calm, then by the nineties they were replaced by a conservative attitude. People were picketing outside bookstores selling Hamilton albums. It was quite possible to get sued for storing the photographer's work. By the way, such a precedent really took place in 2010. David Hamilton himself reacts coolly to the attacks, stating that smart people will be able to distinguish obscenity from sensuality and appreciate the artistic aspect of his work.

David Hamilton Albums

The first album of the photographer was Dreams of a young girl, released in 1971. To date, more than fifteen publications have been published. Among them are David Hamilton, Souvenirs, The Young Girl, Un été à Saint-Tropez, A Place In The Sun, Holiday Snapshots. Perhaps the most famous was The Age of Innocence, published in 1995. Until now, pictures from this album are the first to come to mind at the mention of a creative person named David Hamilton. Photo works for the publication are selected in a single vein. The black-and-white photographs show the master's favorite models, girls at a tender age, dressed very conventionally. Hamilton's latest edition is Erotic Tales. Since 2006, he has not released any albums, but continues to publish in magazines.

Director's work of the master

Hamilton became famous not only because of his pictures. In the 1970s and 1980s he directed six feature films, and wrote for two of them himself.scenario. All of them are erotic melodramas in which a young girl explores her nascent sensuality. The most famous of them are Bilitis, Laura and First Wishes. "Tender Cousins" and "Summer in St. Tropez" were continued in the form of photo albums of the same name. Hamilton's films are not as highly rated by critics as his photographs, but they harmoniously fit into the overall picture of the master's creative heritage.

The controversy surrounding the name David Hamilton has been going on for decades. While opponents of his work continue to discuss the moral merits of the pictures, the income from their sales is in the millions. The master's works adorn Carnegie Hall, the Royal Palace in Denmark and the US Library of Congress. The photographer entered his name in history next to such masters as Helmut Newton and Henri Cartier-Bresson. No matter how envious and moralists try to denigrate David Hamilton, he remains one of the most talented photo artists of our time.