The Getaway
Montana, USA
This photograph, taken high in the mountains of Montana, offers strong clues as to why Cara Delevingne is a global superstar. She has the eyes and the face to steal most scenes and the intelligence to play a prescribed role. There is nothing I would change in her look in this vignette. It is a perfect combination of purpose and rather unhinged menace. She can do this as easily as some people flick a switch.
Chief John Spotted Tail of the Lakota tribe was an excellent foil for Cara and they work well together. He is revered locally and it was an honour to have him on set. He brings a further edge to an image encapsulating my read on the old Wild West: a place of guns; trouble in hard drinking saloons; occasional bad weather and maverick characters. No wonder Westerns have a film genre to them selves – it is too rich a seam in the material to have to share a category with anything else. To go “West” was perhaps the greatest adventure story the world has ever known.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition Size: 20
- Image: 56” x 96”
- Framed: 71” x 111”
STANDARD - Edition Size: 20
- Image: 37” x 64”
- Framed: 52” x 79”
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
The Final Frontier
Montana, USA -2020
The Pioneer bar in Virginia City has offered so much to us over the years and we are acutely conscious not to overplay our hand here. After all, there are many other weathered saloons in the West. We don’t want to be repetitive in our story telling. That would be lame.
Equally, for our work, The Pioneer is emphatically the best bar known to us. It has depth and the wagon wheel on the ceiling is ideally positioned. More importantly, it is home turf for us and last year I was honoured to receive “The Freedom of the City”. I have the key in my briefcase. The owner of The Pioneer partners with us rather than simply permiting us and that is a material difference.
But when we go back each winter, it is important to bring a new variable to offer the chance of an image that can transcend. There is no point going backwards. My new variable this time was Cara Delevingne and her established team of stylists and hair and make-up artists. To bring such a celebrated and relevant woman as Cara to Montana is fresh ground. Put her in front of the Eiffel Tower and it is a new look on the Eiffel Tower.
I gave her team a directive for this shot: bad ass; sexy; sovereign; 1920s but still very much Cara. They absolutely nailed it, as did she. The hat made a huge difference. I can’t think of any other woman in the world I would prefer to play this role.
These are not easy images to execute as there is such limited light. Depth of field and shutter speeds are therefore compromised. Cara would always be sharp – that was easy – then we had to hope for some luck elsewhere. Cameras have improved so much over the years in terms of ability to work in low light. I could not have done this 10 years ago. But you are pushing the camera right to the edge of its capability.
She owns this shot.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE
- Image size: 52" x 70"
- Framed with a 3" mat: 63" x 81"
- Framed with a 5" mat: 67" x 85"
STANDARD
- Image size: 71" x 99"
- Framed with a 3" mat: 82" x 110"
- Framed with a 5" mat: 86" x 114”
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Westworld
Montana, USA
Westerns tend to have an unapologetically masculine skew to their castings. The Wild West was certainly characterised by hard drinking tough men who coupled entrepreneurship with resolve and a lack of ethics. Hollywood would lead you to believe that it was a male dominated adventure almost to the point of parody. On screen few women elbowed their way into this testosterone-laden landscape
and horses were often given more attention.
However, women must have gone West too, otherwise birth rates would have slowed a bit. These women must have been gritty as it was a journey for only the very stoic. In a genre that revels in the lone male protagonist, we wanted to use a still photograph to celebrate the women of the Wild West. They were not just window dressing.
The romanticist within me was not going to be prompted by grotesque characters like Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Daisy Domergue in Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. The prostitute role – so well played by Diane Lane in the brilliant Lonesome Dove – is also well worn. We wanted a softer, more palatable narrative, albeit one with a sense of the woman emphatically holding her own.
I homed in on the idea of a “tough as nails” saloon owner, with more class, intelligence and glamour than any of her unworthy patrons. We had the saloon in Nevada City – it is such a good facade – we just needed the woman and the styling.
We decided on the supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio and she was indeed perfect for this role. Her styling team did a great job and the whole frame works. I think she thoroughly enjoyed herself that morning.
I am sure there were women like this in the Wild West in 1850. Let’s hope so. As a collective they should be celebrated and remembered and theirs was one hell of a story.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition of 12
- Image: 56” x 86”
- Framed: 71” x 101”
STANDARD - Edition of 12
- Image: 37” x 57”
- Framed: 52” x 72”
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
My Baby Takes The Morning Train
Montana, USA
In 1863, Bill Fairweather and his party discovered gold in southwestern Montana. They were on their way to Yellowstone County from Bannack but were waylaid by a band of Crows. Whilst hiding from the Indians in a gulch they found gold. They named the gulch after the alder trees lining the gulch. Alder
was one of the great gold producers of all time. The site of the largest placer gold strike in world history. It produced $10,000,000.00 during the first year.
Given this background, I thought it would be appropriate to bring a modern-day Indian Chief into the abandoned mining train in Nevada City.
Alessandra Ambrosio is not just a famed super-model, she is a wave of fun and good energy. Working with her and her team is an absolute joy. It must have seemed a long way from her home country of Brazil in that carriage, but she is so effective in whatever role I outline for her.
We found a Montana paper from the height of the gold rush and thought it would lend to the story if Chief John Spotted Tail was reading it. This was a commuter train like no other.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition Size: 12
- Image: 56” x 71”
- Framed: 71” x 86”
STANDARD - Edition Size: 12
- Image: 37” x 47”
- Framed: 52” x 62”
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Unforgiven
Montana, USA
When Cindy Crawford made her iconic Pepsi advert in 1992 for the Superbowl and then repeated it again in 2018, there were a few other constants as well as the model herself – most notably Peter Savic, one of the most celebrated hair stylists in the world. His client roster reads like the ultimate A list in Hollywood. Looking at his CV it would be quicker to mention who he hasn’t worked with.
I had never had the fortune to work with Peter before but my brief time with him in Eastern Montana gave an insight into his genius. I gave him a rather clumsy articulation of the narrative I was looking for in this outdoor shot in freezing temperatures near Ingomar, a tiny hamlet with a population of just 15. We were about as far removed from controlled studio conditions in Hollywood as you could conceive. I think I simply said that Cindy would be carrying a shotgun and with it a look of intent. Twenty minutes later Cindy bounced out of the car with an extravagant Raquel Welch 1960s big hair look that was spot on for what I had in mind.
After that my job was easy – to shoot as quickly as possible so that our lead would not get too cold. The trick is simply to have no doubt in one’s mind of the composition and believe firmly in the narrative embodied in the preconception. It’s a bit like a golf shot (not that I would know), you make up your mind and go for it. My storyline was that Cindy and her troop were the deliverers of frontier justice – whatever way that may come. I guess there is a slight nod to Tarantino in the vignette.
It worked and this was certainly a team effort.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition Size: 20
- Image: 50” x 101”
- Framed: 65” x 116”
STANDARD - Edition Size: 20
- Image: 32” x 65”
- Framed: 47” x 80”
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Let's Catch The Last Train Home
Montana, USA 2018
No one is remembered for playing it safe. On the surface, the idea of placing a couple of exceptional women in front of an abandoned train in a ghost town high up in the mountains of Montana, and styling them in a way that exposes their curves as well as their personalities, is a risky concept in 2018. There is every chance that this work could be seen as gratuitous objectification and not art. It will irk many but equally, their coats were positioned very carefully.
But I will go with it and when I saw the print for the first time in large scale, I knew there was something and others have reinforced this belief. It just works and the more I review the intricacy of the train’s facade, I do think that there is a little magic – the icicles, the expression of the mountain lion, the textural beauty of the wood. The girls both rock and that was not easy for them – it was 15 degrees below zero that morning.
But what I am trying to say? Nothing – nothing at all – I am just playing with visual double takes and remembering that the wild west was exactly that. Let’s just catch the last train home.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE: Edition of 12
- Image: 79" x 56" (201 cm x 143 cm)
- Framed: 90" x 67" (229 cm x 171 cm)
STANDARD: Edition of 12
- Image: 52" x 37" (132 cm x 94 cm)
- Framed: 63" x 48" (160 cm x 122 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
Something's Brewing
Virginia City, Montana 2019
This staged picture, in the virtual ghost town of Virginia City, has a compositional balance that I like; the wolf, the wolf’s shadow and the cowboys are all in the right place – which is fortunate given that the wolf was running towards me.
I have never used this old brewery building before in my storytelling because I worried that the facade was too high to fit in an image if there was also to be a cast immediately in front of it. There were two possible solutions – to move the story further away from the building, which would risk disassociation, or to get close to the building and try and capture the wolf with a true wide-angle lens, not easy at all and could risk ending with a lousy series of far lit loose shots. The whole building would be in for sure, but to work with a 28mm lens and a wolf is not to play the percentages.
We had no real choice but to go for the second option and roll the dice. We got lucky, but as someone once said “Luck is the residue of design”. A sharp shot on a 28 mm lens is pin pin sharp.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition Size: 12
- Image: 56" x 67" (143 cm x 171 cm)
- Framed: 67" x 82" (171 cm x 209 cm)
STANDARD - Edition Size: 12
- Image: 37" x 47" (94 cm x 120 cm)
- Framed: 48" x 58" (122 cm x 148 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your artwork. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
American Hustle
Montana, 2019
It was by pure chance that we found this treasure trove of a saloon bar off a remote country road in Western Montana. Time appeared to have stood still for over 100 years and as an authentic “Final Frontier” canvas on which to tell a story, I have never seen a better room in which to work. There was not one hint of modernity and the wooden and leather finish to the pool table was absolutely remarkable. The attention to detail throughout the bar was exceptional – the Bucking Horse is a labour of love for its owner – a true mountain man called John Crane.
48 hours before Cindy’s arrival, we spent a morning in the bar exploring every angle. The window light was okay, but the ambient light was marginal and it was clear we only had one angle to work with as I could not shoot towards the two windows. Luckily, with my maximum wide-angle lens, we could, from the chosen position, include enough of the bar to do it justice and also major on the pool table – which was the standout feature of the saloon.
The next question was what to do? This is an outstanding location and we needed to do it justice. We knew that the pool table would be critical and if we were to bring a wolf into the mix, he would need to be involved in the game.
On the day of the shoot, Cindy killed it – she was such a presence and that was exactly what I asked for. She owns the bar with her sovereign and authoritative look. I wanted to create a final frontier vignette that had a menacing overlay – no out of towner is coming into this territorial bolthole, playing pool and leaving with the cash. It is Wild West American hustle.
AVAILABLE SIZES:
LARGE - Edition Size: 20
- Image: 56" x 76" (143 cm x 193 cm)
- Framed: 67" x 95" (171 cm x 242 cm)
STANDARD - Edition Size: 20
- Image: 37" x 56" (94 cm x 143 cm)
- Framed: 48" x 67" (122 cm x 171 cm)
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your masterpiece. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Asmus Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.
True Grit
It is integral to my style of animal portraiture to obsess on the lead characteristics of the subject and then look to magnify those characteristics. I always want a Champions League model, not a Third Division player. When I photograph African elephants, for instance, I work in Kenya which boasts the biggest, most magnificent elephants in the world. I would never go to Botswana to photograph an elephant – they are smaller than their East African cousins. With cowboys, I am drawn to the great state of Texas – where the most authentic, uncompromising, working cowboys in the world live their lives. The flat and arid, big sky topography of West Texas offers a distinctive canvas that not just locates an image, it also lends a stage on which to take a dynamic portrait. Texan cowboys are the real deal and the vastness of west Texas is their workplace.
On set on the Rio Grande, which divides America from Mexico, I met a working cowboy called Ryan Marshall. Mannered and tough, he boasted not only extraordinary horsemanship skills, but a bountiful and ageless moustache and beard. I knew that I had to take his portrait in full partnership with his magnificent horse, Frisco, and we had already scouted the perfect location and had been granted access to it the following day. The deal was done. The photograph wins because of its vitality and power, but also because of Ryan’s anonymity. I am an eyes person, but on this occasion, we don’t need them. This is west Texas and all the ‘True Grit’ that goes with it.
Available size options with and without framing are below;
- Large: 67 x 113 inches framed
- Standard: 48 x 78 inches framed
We ship worldwide and use a multitude of providers to safely deliver your artwork. Domestic delivery and installation may also be available via Hilton Contemporary’s private art shuttle. Please inquire.