Stockland Martel

John Midgley shoots a really wide variety of work—from impeccable car campaigns to mysterious fashion stories, plus celebrity portraits—and he works with his wife, the director Eva Midgley, as DP on her films. But no matter what the project, his affinity for fine art always seems to shine through. It’s just part of who he is.

In this email interview that I did with John, he talks about his influences and what inspires his work.

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An image from a recent fashion story by John Midgley.

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You’ve mentioned the influence of painting and cinema in your photography. Can you elaborate?

as early as i can remember paintings and cinema were present in the background. my mother was an art therapy teacher before she had us children. she was always keen to show us films and paintings and was forever holding my squiggles up as works of art. when we lived in paris i can remember going to see the magic flute, which from my memory  was completely impressionistic and image driven and didn’t make sense in terms of story but i can remember being transfixed by it .

on rainy sundays i would be dragged around the louvre as it was only a few blocks away from where we lived . i actually don’t remember any single painting from that time but i am aware that i have a deep rooted sense of classical painting in my photographs which i can only think comes from those days hiding from the rain. as i was growing up i have always been drawn to films because at home we didn’t have a tv. i didn’t see many films but when i did i can remember it being an experience that would stay with me for days.

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From the series "Memory of Paris."

From the series "Europe."

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later at art college i started to work with journeys. i would go on a very random journey . for instance to see a friend in hamburg. i’d take with me an underwater 35mm camera and just shoot pictures of whatever was in front of me. for most of the traveling i would be alone. the loneliness in  these journeys resonated very strongly with me. i would feel a wave of emotion come over me as i edited them. i figured at the time this was good. this is what art is supposed to be about?

so i started to plan the trips a little. my last trip was going back to paris where my parents seperated . the goal was to try and get into the apartment that we lived in. it was quite traumatic going into the apartment and the images after editing told that story to me. i wasn’t really concerned about the outside world understanding this and hoped the images would also communicate in a jungean sort of way (the collective subconscious). the sequencing was meant to feel cinematic. towards the end of art school i played with music to accompany the images being projected as large images.

after art school the harsh reality of life as an artist just wasn’t possible for me, so commercial photography became my reality pretty quickly. i very quickly realized that advertising was about communicating clearly to a large audience. so somehow painting as reference material started to make sense for me. classical painting was also about pretty universal messages to society . in a zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance way it seemed universal to me. everyone loves classical paintings.  but for me it was going back to the basics. my own visual basics.

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Some of John’s advertising work…

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From a recent campaign for Acura.

From a campaign for Kenneth Cole.

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You’ve managed to persuade celebrities like Harrison Ford, Ozzy Osbourne, and Woody Harrelson to take action, if you will, for your camera, whether it’s leaping in the air or flinging a flowerpot. Can you explain what these nontraditional representations of these people means to you, what you’re trying to express, and how on earth you persuade your subjects to go for it?

i really enjoy portraiture. i love to read about an actor and try and figure out what makes them tick. sometimes it’s there personal life but mostly it’s about the characters they choose to play. for an actor i believe the characters they portray are central to their public identity. this is important to me because in the commissioned portraits that i am taking it is usually to promote a particular film. the personal life is an essence , it’s an emotional background. i see my job as to make the process as painless as possible. i like to present a small group of potential shots with clear ideas linking to the character they have portrayed and a little take on them that usually is not too deep .

i feel that like me they want the images to look amazing and not too contrived .i go in feeling we are on the same page. after all they have seen my work already and so there aren’t too many surprises. i have never questioned why they actually do the things i ask them. i guess because i really genuinely respect them and would never do anything to make them look foolish.
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John's portraits of actor Kyle MacLachlan.

Ozzy Osbourne.

Harrison Ford.

Michael Douglas.

John (center, in black shirt) during a shoot for his 2009 personal project inspired by the store Brooklyn Circus.

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Fashion inspires photographers for different reasons, such as for the sense of theatricality or the opportunity to represent an almost unattainable beauty. What is it about fashion that inspires you as a photographer?

i guess fashion for me goes back to paris and daydreaming. escaping the confines of everyday life.

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From a fashion story John shot in the Rockaways.

From a fashion story commissioned by Interview magazine.

From a story he shot for 125 Magazine.

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You also have worked in film as a director of photography. Can you tell me a bit about the kinds of projects you’ve done, what you’ve got coming up, and what need working as a DP satisfies for you creatively?

i have mostly been working with my wife eva who is a director. we have worked together on a series of shorts for coco-de mer and we have a short film that is doing the rounds at the film festivals called peep show. i love the work of robby muller, conrad l hall , roger deakins and stuart dryburgh. cinematography makes or breaks a film for me. what does being a DP satisfy creatively? you can tell stories and you are painting on a much bigger , more fluid canvas.

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A still from "Peep Show," on which John served as director of photography.

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Related:

“‘Rapture is coming (viewer discretion is advised)”

“A peek at ‘Peep Show’“

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