Pamela Hanson On Her Incredible Career Behind The Camera

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With her recently released Rizzoli book The ’90s just out and an exhibition at the Staley-Wise Gallery of her work opening this month, Pamela Hanson is finally getting her flowers. The legendary photographer has shot some of the greatest images of our time and now it’s her moment to look back on her incredible career—albeit reluctantly! 

How did you pick up a camera?
I was really, really young. My sister was into photography, and I always wanted to be like her. I just remember getting a [Kodak] Brownie camera when I was a teenager from my parents. I have all these pictures I took of my friends in seventh, eighth grade, and then I just really got into it. I built a dark room in the basement, then I went to high school, to a boarding school, and did the high school yearbook and all that stuff. I never thought of it as a profession.

Pamela Hanson

You ended up assisting photographers and learned about fashion photography. How did you start with Arthur Elgort?
I reconnected with my closest friend, Lisa McCormick Love, and she said she was modeling to make money and I told her I was working for a photographer. She was living in Paris and I ended up going to visit her. At the time I had responded to Arthur Elgort’s pictures. I loved his energy and thought maybe I could assist him. She knew him and thought we should meet. He took me out for lunch, and he went through my book, which was a mishmash of pictures, and said, “This is good, this is bad.” He said I probably wouldn’t be a good assistant, but I speak French and I should move to Paris, and that’s a good place to start and when he’s there I can assist him.

When did things start to shift?
I brought my book to magazines and they thought it stood out because it was uncontrived. I would go to magazines every day in Paris and say, “I’m in the neighborhood, if you need anything.” And they would say, “Well, there’s this woman in her garden, we need a little photograph for the front of the book.” I would go do that. And then I assisted Arthur, like four or five times. I was more like his driver, but I got to go on shoots. I got to see how it worked, and I got to hang out with him while he edited. It was helpful. Then I just was always available in Paris. Someone canceled some big job for Marie Claire and I ended up getting 10 pages, and then suddenly all the people I had been knocking on their doors for two years were like, “Why isn’t she working for us?”

Pamela Hanson’s photography

What have been some of the highlights for you of your incredible career so far?
Working for Arthur was a turning point. When I started working with Brana Wolf, who was an editor at Italian Vogue, that entrance into that world was incredible. Obviously shooting Beyoncé was huge. But before that, there were so many incredible trips; it’s just a fun time. I keep asking Brana and my friends, “Was it better then, or are the same things happening now and we just don’t know it?” It just felt very free and creative, especially being in Paris. That was a great place to start.

Pamela Hanson’s photography

A book of your images, Pamela Hanson, The ’90s, is just out.
Over the years, people and assistants of mine have been saying, “You should do a book.” They would say, “You were like the first one to do the girls in a bedroom at a hotel.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I know what they meant. It was a kind of intimacy, and it was a woman and not a man. Finally, one of my studio managers said I was spending all this money on storage. I started cleaning out my archives. Do I need this lingerie shoot from some weird catalog? I started looking through everything and based it on pictures I loved. I thought, “Wow, some of these pictures are great.” Sometimes when you look back at things, it’s different. That’s how it kind of came together. Part of me was like, “Who’s going to care? Nobody’s going to care about this.” Then I thought, “Maybe someone will care.” I have some friends who are young photographers. I asked what they thought. They were like, “Oh, my God, yes.”

Pamela Hanson: The 90s

You have an exhibition of your work in New York this month!
It’s going to be at Staley-Wise, which is the gallery that has a lot of fashion images, and it opens on September 18th. It’s images around the book, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never had a show of my own, so I’m excited. Everything just kind of fell together. What everybody says is, which I think is interesting, that it’s not really fashion.

Why do you think there is such affection for the 1990s in fashion?
I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. That was the era that I was in. My career was taking off at the beginning. I think Vogue is doing a ’90s book. It feels like it’s a perfect storm; it was pre-iPhones. It was pre-digital cameras. Everything in there is film. There’s, like, two images from one model who requested retouching, 
but nothing’s retouched. And maybe that was the last time that actually happened.

Pamela Hanson’s photography

What’s your take on retouching?
I’ve struggled with it, when it first started. I look at images as I was doing then. I was like…I hate retouching. Unfortunately, I think our eyes are now trained to it. I was looking at some old issues of Vogue and I loved Helmut Newton pictures and I knew him, and he was amazing and incredible and it was like a beauty shot, and the girl’s eyes were bloodshot. Honestly, I struggle with it.

What’s it like for you to have the spotlight on you right now?
Really hard.

Pamela Hanson’s photography

Why?
I’m used to being on the other side. When my mother died, I started recording things. I guess somewhere it’s always like a buffer; I prefer to be an observer of life, and I love, obviously, to participate in it, but it’s been…we’ll see how it goes. I want to enjoy it!

How do you want to be remembered?
I want to be remembered as being an empathetic, kind person who took some good pictures.

All images: Courtesy of Pamela Hanson 

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