Markus Klinko
The Final Step: Turning My Photos Into Prints for Galleries Around the World
BY: MARKUS KLINKO
JAN 05, 2023
Markus Klinko
Une trentaine d'œuvres, à la fois physiques et digitales, du photographe américain sont exposées dans la boutique Versace de Bruxelles.
Creating a successful photograph is a process that has numerous stages. Printing the work masterfully, usually the last portion of the endeavor, is paramount.
As I enter my 29th year as a documentarian of pop culture (often referred to as fashion/celebrity photographer), I have seen my work move from the covers of magazines onto the walls of art galleries, museums, and private art collections.
Now getting ready for new shows in Houston, Texas, and Ventura, California, it is time to talk about the all-important aspect of printing.
After all, the print is what everyone sees, and what the photograph will be judged by. So why not pay a little tribute to the people that make this all happen?
There are many ways to make a gorgeous print, and choosing the ideal paper is critical. For my work, I prefer a glossy luster, so Fujicolor Crystal Archive Digital Pearl is my paper of choice.
It has a distinct metallic reflection effect that suits my work to perfection. I also love Fujiflex Crystal Archive Printing Material, for its razor-sharp rendering, vibrant colors, and impeccable whites.
I do not print my own work — after many trials and errors, I have had the fortune of collaborating exclusively with the great master printer, John Weldon of LA’s famous Weldon Color Lab. After working with John for many years on dozens of solo exhibitions, group shows, and art fairs, I recently sat down with John for a bit of a recap of his career, and to hear how he applies his talent and great experience to my work.
I asked John about his journey to becoming one of the world’s premier printmakers and how it all started.
“My freshman year in high school I found an old telescope in the closet and my dad, an engineer on the first Apollo missions, told me I’d be able to see the craters on the moon,” John says. “It was so amazing that I put my camera up to the eyepiece and when I got the film back from the drugstore it came back with a note on it: no charge – no images. So I shot it again and put a note on it that the photos were of stars and planets, and the white dots on the film were the actual photos. The roll came back with another note: no charge – no images.
“My dad saw this and for Christmas gave me an old darkroom set-up so that I could process the photos myself. Next thing you know I started processing color prints in the darkroom I’d built in my bathroom! When I showed some neighbors my photos pretty soon they started bringing me their negatives to print.
“While still in high school by chance I discovered a black and white rental darkroom in the neighborhood, and soon they offered to pay me to do color printing for them. Ten years later, in 1989, my fascination with photography inspired me to open my own photo lab at our current location where I began specializing in Cibachrome printing. As the technology has continued to evolve, so too has the lab continued to grow. We are currently one of the only labs in the world with top expertise in Lightjet printing.”
John says the challenge of helping photographers achieve their vision is the “secret ingredient” behind what allowed his lab to develop its reputation as one of the premier printing companies in North America.
The lab has grown to offer a very wide range of services for photographers.
“We do it all at Weldon – from film development to scanning to printing and mounting!” John says. “Our state-of-the-art Lightjet printing offers an amazing level of vibrancy. And our archival inkjet prints allow for a complete range of unique papers and surfaces to choose from to complement any type of photograph. We develop film in our custom black-and-white film-processing lab with great care by hand, utilizing traditional archival development.
“Our scanning department offers a range of services, including high-resolution drum scanning, and flatbed scanning, and our digital photography can accommodate reproduction of large-scale paintings.”
I asked John whether most of his clients have specific requests regarding the printing process and the paper used, or whether he helps to direct artists to their eventual choices.
“While we do assist clients new to photography every week select the best options for their images, the majority of our clients are professional photographers, museums, and galleries,” John says. “Professionals usually know what kind of style they want, but are always happy to hear about the latest innovations.”
Weldon Color Lab recently introduced the historic art of platinum palladium printing, which inspired me to release my David Bowie Platinum Edition — a platinum print I have included in my STARMAN show.
“Platinum-palladium prints are unrivaled by any modern printing technique, both in appearance and performance,” John says. “One reason the prints, created on Hahnemuhle paper, are favored by art collectors is due to their longevity, achieving an archival rating in excess of 1,500 years. And in terms of appearance, the prints create an added sense of depth, and the tonal range of the prints is unmatched.
“Dating back to the 1870s, this handmade photographic-printmaking technique was created through contact printing, meaning the photographic negative matches the size of the final print. As a result, photographers of the times were more limited to what size they could make their prints. Now we can make ‘digital negatives’ up to 40″ wide! Currently, we are printing up to 24×30″ and are excited that later this year will be able to print 30×40″ platinum-palladium prints.”
John says his lab is currently looking to expand its platinum services to serve galleries and museums around the world.
About the author: Markus Klinko is an international fashion/celebrity photographer who has worked with many of today’s most iconic stars of film, music, and fashion. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Klinko’s work on his website and Instagram.
How we photographed David Bowie with wild wolves
Markus Klinko
Renowned photographer Markus Klinko tells the story of how he came to photograph the legendary David Bowie with wild wolves for British GQ's October 2002 issue.
It was the late spring of 2001 when I met Angelina Jolie’s famous make up artist, Paul Starr, on a shoot for Interview magazine in New York. He asked me if I had ever worked with Iman, another client of his, and suggested that he would take my portfolio over to her house, just a few blocks down the street from my studio.
The next day, Iman called me on the phone and said that she wanted to meet me and talk about a project. I was very excited to see the legendary supermodel in-person and was anxious to hear what she had in mind. When she arrived at the studio, I was shocked that she was even more stunning than the photos. She was very complimentary of my work and explained that she had been working on her first book, I am Iman. She had contributions from virtually every great fashion photographer in the world already, from Helmut Newton to Steven Meisel, but she wanted me to shoot the cover of the book. I couldn’t be more flattered, but also felt the pressure to create something amazing with her. We scheduled the shoot for the following week.
Read more: How we photographed David Bowie with wild wolves
The session was very successful. She wore fabulous dresses sent over by Alexander McQueen. Iman took on the role of a fierce warrior Goddess and embodied it completely. A couple days later, Iman returned to the studio to take a look over the edits with me, and to my great surprise, David Bowie came along to help choose the cover. He was every bit as charismatic and extraordinary as one can imagine, but really kind and lovely to talk to. David was very involved in the selection process and had a great eye for imagery. Both of them loved the photos.
During the editing session, David casually mentioned that he might be working on a new album and that perhaps he would call me to talk about shooting the cover for it. That sounded a bit too good to be true, and while I was hopeful that this could happen, I did not get my hopes up too high.
Meanwhile, the terrible events of 9/11 took place less than a mile from my studio, and for a little while I even forgot about the prospects of shooting my first David Bowie album cover. Yet, a few weeks after the tragedy, true to his word, Bowie called me. He is one of the very few celebrities that I have worked with who personally got involved, and was extremely communicative and very hands-on in the process. He asked if I could come over to a Broadway recording studio and listen to some tracks. I went over the next day. I wandered around the old, understated recording studio to find Bowie and his producer, Tony Visconti, in one of the rooms. Bowie said that wanted to play some of the new songs for me before discussing the album art. The mental image of Bowie sitting by a window, smoking cigarettes while his producer played the rough mixes from the board, is a memory that I could never forget. After listening to almost the entire album together, we started talking about the shoot. He had many ideas and was very precise about them.
David was very eager to get it all set up as quickly as possible and to shoot within a couple days. He returned to my studio the next day, and brought a series of early Man Ray images that he was very interested in referencing in some way or another. He wanted to be styled in Forties’s suits and wanted to get into the character of a blind man. At that time, most of my work was very colorful, but David was profoundly visionary and believed that it would be interesting for me to produce a series of mainly black and white album images, as well as some color images for press.
He is one of the most photogenic stars ever, and almost every single shot looked incredible. Bowie knew exactly what poses and expressions to do in order to portray the character we discussed. He was very carefree and fun to shoot.
During the following weeks, David often came by the studio to select and edit the photos. One day, he stopped by while I was shooting a British GQ editorial with a lot of male and female models running around in towels and he said, “This reminds me of the Seventies! And I remember nothing from the Seventies…” and then he laughed.
Heathen was released in 2002, and Bowie went on tour to promote the album. Around that time, I got a call from GQ in London, asking me to shoot David for their prestigious “Men of the Year” cover. Since Bowie was busy with the tour and was not available for a shoot within the deadline for the magazine, a creative solution had to be found.
I called up to David and asked him if he would trust me with creating a series of complex photocompositions, using a body double and several wild wolves. He immediately loved that idea, and said that I had carte blanche. My agent called the modeling agencies, and I decided on a young guy who had very much the stature and body shape of Bowie.
Next, I needed to find a bunch of wild wolves and get them to my Soho studio. Luckily, a prominent handler of wild animals for film and photo shoots was a huge David Bowie fan and agreed to bring the gorgeous beasts to New York. Our male model proved himself quite brave, as he worked it with the energetic and sometimes aggressive wolves. While his face looked nothing like Bowie, he was able to channel him through his body language. The images of David from the Heathen session and the shots of the body model and wolves were later combined by my post-production studio and have since become a favorite in GQ’s iconic history.
In the years following the Heathen and GQ shoots, I continued working with Iman on a regular basis, and saw David a couple of times. Once at Iman’s birthday party, he was running around their home and putting on great music to set a fun mood for everyone at the party. I brought over a huge print of Iman as a gift and they both loved it. It was very obvious how much he adored Iman. After his heart attack in 2005, I did not see him anymore.
Fast forward to 21 May 2013: at this time, I had moved to Los Angeles and was finishing up at the gym when I received an email marked “URGENT” from Bowie’s manager, letting me know that David wanted to speak to me. I rushed home to take his call, and was elated to learn that he wanted me to direct a video for his new single “Valentine’s Day.” Years earlier when we shot the Heathen artwork, I told Bowie that I would love to direct a video for the album and he said that it would be great but his new music was not mainstream enough to play on MTV so he didn’t see the point in making any videos. During those days, music videos really depended on MTV.
As I chatted on the phone with David for over an hour about his new video, it was just amazing how surprised he was at the success of this latest album, The Next Day. He said that he was not expecting that at all. With the creative freedom of Vevo and Youtube, he was excited to create videos again.
We did an animated portrait shoot, since many of his fans really wanted to be able to just watch him “without all the bells and whistles.” We shot the video in two days in New York. The song was about a mass shooting, and he wanted to reference the violence in a very subtle way. I had the idea to insert a flying bullet for a split second and if you look closely, there is a shadow of a person holding a machine gun.
My coffee table book, Icons, had just come out a few months prior to the video shoot featuring both David and Iman, with Iman writing the foreword for the book. David wanted a few copies of the book, and signed some as gifts. His spirits were very high and he was in a great mood. It was wonderful to work with him again after so many years, and see him full of creativity, energy, and excitement about the future.
Markus Klinko’s “Bowie Unseen” show opens in Basel, Switzerland on 24 March at Licht Feld gallery until 9 April and in LA at Mr Musichead gallery on Sunset Blvd on 19 May.
Markus Klinko’s Amazing Never-Before-Seen Photos of David Bowie
Markus Klinko
They're outtakes from a 2001 shoot that involved a pack of wolves.
In 2001, Markus Klinko was invited to photograph David Bowie. Now, in the wake of the beloved singer and artist’s unexpected passing, the unpublished images are finally coming to light, and are currently on view in”Bowie Unseen” at LA’s Mr MusicHead Gallery.
The photographer shot the album cover for Bowie’s 2002 record, Heathen, an eerie black and white image of the singer as a blind man. The current exhibition includes that photo, as well as over 20 never-before-seen outtakes from that day.
“It was a 9 to 5 shoot,” Klinko recalled in an interview with ABC. “We got so much done and, you know, I will never forget this session.”
Once we did the cover for Heathen—which took several hours and which he had very precisely mapped out in his head what he wanted—he then turned very playful and allowed me to have fun,” he added.
On the strength of that work, Klinko was asked to create the cover image for GQ‘s “Man of the Year” issue honoring Bowie. The resulting image shows the rock star fearlessly posing with a pack of wild wolves. Due to Bowie’s busy schedule and lack of availability for another shoot, Klinko was forced to use a body double with the wolves, carefully adding in the singer’s face from the photos taken for Heathen during post-production.
“Our male model proved himself quite brave, as he worked it with the energetic and sometimes aggressive wolves,” Klinko recalled in GQ earlier this year. “While his face looked nothing like Bowie, he was able to channel him through his body language.”
A portion of the proceeds from all works sold during Klinko’s exhibition will go to Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, in honor of the singer, who died from liver cancer.
See more of Klinko’s photos of Bowie below.
Markus Klinko’s “Bowie Unseen” is on view at Mr MusicHead Gallery, 7420 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, May 19–June 15, 2016.
Versace et Cube Art Fair exposent les œuvres du célèbre photographe Markus Klinko
by Katie Lister
Markus Klinko
Une trentaine d'œuvres, à la fois physiques et digitales, du photographe américain sont exposées dans la boutique Versace de Bruxelles.
Considéré comme l’un des photographes les plus prolifiques des années 2000, Klinko a capturé des personnalités légendaires de la musique et du divertissement, notamment Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Jay Z, Janet Jackson et David Bowie.
L’exposition organisée par la Cube Art Fair et orchestrée sur le plan curatorial par Vogelsang Gallery, qui représente Klinko, coïncide avec le Uptown Tour, un parcours qui promeut l’art et le design dans des lieux d’exception de la capitale européenne.
Les œuvres photographiques tendance de Klinko sont en parfaite adéquation avec Versace, dont l’ADN extravagant et créatif et sa définition du luxe se marient avec les tirages d’art contemporain colorés et audacieux de Markus Klinko. Les personnages emblématiques dont il capture les esprits ne sont pas seulement connus pour leur savoir-faire artistique, mais aussi pour la façon dont ils repoussent les limites de leur sens du style et de leur identité de mode.
Cube Art Fair occupe habituellement l’espace public de manière spectaculaire en présentant des œuvres d’art contemporain dans les rues de villes comme New York, Miami ou Bruxelles. Ses expositions, diffusées sur de gigantesque panneaux digitaux de 2000 mètres carrés sur Times Square, ou projetées sur des gratte-ciel de 120 mètres de haut à Miami, ont valu à la foire lors de ses neuf précédentes éditions l’acclamation de la presse internationale qualifiant “The World’s Largest Public Art Fair” (la plus grande foire d’art publique du monde). Aujourd’hui c’est en occupant les murs de la boutique Versace, que la Cube Art Fair a décidé de faire vivre les œuvres de ses artistes.
“Versace est à la pointe de la créativité dans le domaine de la mode, et je suis ravi que notre collaboration avec Cube Art Fair apporte le meilleur de la créativité dans l’art contemporain au sein de leur boutique. La curation de l’exposition Markus Klinko a été un processus passionnant, ses œuvres capturent véritablement l’esprit Versace », déclare Gregoire Vogelsang, fondateur de Cube Art Fair et propriétaire de la galerie éponyme Vogelsang Gallery.
39th Annual Smith Nature Symposium Awards Dinner
Markus Klinko est un exemple de la façon dont les photographes – et les créatifs qui travaillent dans le monde commercial – peuvent réussir aussi bien, sinon plus, dans le domaine des beaux-arts : Ses œuvres se vendent à des prix record et il est représenté par plusieurs musées et galeries internationales. Plus tôt cette année, le Fotografiska Museum de New York a présenté son travail.
« Je suis honoré que Cube Art Fair ait choisi d’organiser cette exposition en collaboration avec Versace. Je suis tombé amoureux de Versace dans les années 1980. J’adore la marque, et avoir mon travail dans leur magasin phare de cette capitale européenne est un rêve devenu réalité !“, a ajouté Markus Klinko.
Son travail sera présenté dans la prochaine série HBO, The Idol, du créateur Euphoria James Levinson, et mettant en vedette The Weeknd (qui, nous dit Artnet, est également un collectionneur du travail de Klinko).
Les œuvres sont en vente via Vogelsang Gallery: info@vogelsanggallery.com | +1.646.322.7935 ou +32 485 148 845
Versace Bruxelles:
Adresse : Bd de Waterloo 7, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgique
Heures d’ouverture :
du lundi au samedi : de 10h00 à 18h30
