As Robert Bresson says «In this language of images, one must lose completely the notion of image» John Clayton Lee explains the nuances
Credits
Photographer: John Clayton Lee
Styling: Shohei Kashima
Production and Casting Immanence Studio Models yo @PUMP management, Momoko
Team: makeup Dash Kimura, hair Kei Takano @coffininc using ORIBE; photo assistant: Ryusei Iwai, Styling assistant: Haruyo Koeda, Sumile Uegane, Taku Kato Hair assistant: Aoi Yokoyama.
Shot in Tokyo at the Reiyukai Shakaden Temple by the Architecture group Takenaka Corporation
John Clayton Lee images
The only reality that I can conceive is disparate and fragmented, where sequences are not continuous so much as just fleeting, moments of concern are not only the most promising, but instead those nuances in-between are what is brought to the forefront. An illusion is formed on the periphery of what makes an image of fashion and one of art, one that now receives a certain lyrical dependence on one another. There is a tendency to frame each of these necessary features of perception among one another, both when I’m working with my personal work and when I’m working on a commissioned editorial. The capacity of transcendence goes beyond the single image and its subjective limitations and what can be created by these juxtapositions. It’s within the medium of photography – where situations of documentary and reality are at the mercy of illusion and desire. This reconciliation with the unknown is lost in a triumph of doubt: the discontent of what is real and what is imagined, what is seen and what is felt. Pushing the imagery made from shooting fashion into other realms of art creates a certain lyricism through collaborations with everyone involved – designers, stylists, and the publishing institutions. The work is never about assigning any preconceived narrative onto the arrangement of images, but more about transfixing that central gaze into the unknown; looking into these themes of illusion and desire that are embedded in the constructs of the medium of photography.
John Clayton Lee
International photographer/ filmmaker and creative director from the United States. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in the USA and studied abroad at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore for filmmaking. He now lives and works between Japan and Europe / US.
Editorial Team
