The Spirit of Ecstasy

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PEOPLE SPOTLIGHT

The Spirit of Ecstasy Photographer Rankin was given full artistic licence by Rolls-Royce to create a modern and very personal interpretation of The Flying Lady, the hood ornament that has come to personify the car. Gavin Nazareth speaks to the artist behind the lens.

The lady turned 100 and her owners decided to mark her centenary of existence by commissioning a series of contemporary images that would eulogise her female form.

In the first of the series, gossamer fabric sheaths the silhouetted figure of a woman, her arms outstretched backwards.

Another shows the left profile of a woman, her hair and skin silvered, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open as if in ecstasy.

The images, are stark yet evocative, exploring ageless beauty, intrigue, power, grace and speed; all celebrating the Spirit of Ecstasy, the elegant, enigmatic figurine that has adorned the bonnet of every Rolls-Royces since 1911.

A century ago there was a growing fashion for motor-

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ists to attach gaudy mascots to the bonnets of their motorcars. The RollsRoyce board considered such adornments ill-befitting of their motor cars and so managing director Claude Johnson commissioned renowned illustrator and sculptor Charles Robinson Sykes to create a more appropriate figure that captured the essence of Rolls-Royce. His brief to Sykes was to design a mascot “that belonged to the [Rolls-Royce] car as much as a carved

wooden figurehead belonged to a sailing vessel.” The result was the Spirit of Ecstasy, a beguiling and unique figure that is a work of art in itself, that Sykes described as “a graceful little goddess, who has selected road travel as her supreme delight and alighted on the prow of a Rolls-Royce motor car to revel in the freshness of the air and musical sound of her fluttering draperies.”

But like any good tale, this one too had a whiff of scandal over the origins

of and the inspiration for the figure. It is whispered that the artist based the now iconic hood ornament on Eleanor Thornton, the secretary, and allegedly the mistress, of motoring pioneer and founder and editor of The Car Illustrated Magazine, Lord John Montagu, a friend of Sykes. To date, no one knows for sure, and it continues to intrigue and inspire; for some she is symbol of luxury, to others she represents beauty, grace and effortless style. For Rolls-Royce, she has always been more than a physical embodiment of these virtues, becoming a guiding spirit for the marque and the company.

Fast forward through the last 100 years to the present and Rolls-Royce again commissioned another artist to give the lady a more contemporary perspective. Rankin (John Rankin Waddell) was given full artistic licence to create a modern and very personal interpretation of The Flying Lady.

Rankin punches in the heavyweight division of the photography world, gaining a reputation as one of the world’s leading shooters. And no matter the subject – he has framed everyone from the Queen of England and Mikhail Gorbachev to Madonna, U2 and the Rolling Stones in his

Facing page:

Photographer Rankin.

This page & following pages:

Rankin’s vision of the ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’.

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viewfinder – his creative intimate portraiture captures the elemental character and spirit of his subjects, creating an image that is charismatic and almost mesmeric. Over the last two decades, in between adjusting the focus and f-stops on a parade of celebrated faces, he has also assembled a stunning portfolio of fashion, design, beauty and film work, shooting for Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Elle, GQ and Esquire.

Rankin is also the co-founder of Dazed & Confused, a trendsetting quarterly that defined the zeitgeist of the Nineties, and is as influential today as it was then. His work has always questioned established notions of beauty, creating controversy and igniting debate.

Each of the 100 images for Rolls-Royce represents a theme that Rankin personally associates with the Spirit of Ecstasy. He explores ageless beauty, intrigue, power, grace and effortless speed through the female form, also taking inspiration from sculptural forms, materials and textures of the ornament as well as the mystique and intrigue that surround her.

He admits “this is one of the biggest projects I have ever taken on – creating 100 unique pieces of art, each of them embodying the Spirit of Ecstasy”. Here he speaks in detail about the Rolls-Royce projects as well as other upcoming collaborations and his art.

How did you come to collaborate with Rolls-Royce on

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this project? And what was the brief you got for it?

Rolls-Royce initially approached me via their creative agency. They gave me a really open brief; to simply be inspired by the Spirit of Ecstasy and express it in my photography. As a photographer, it’s rare that you get so much freedom – it’s amazing, but also creates a bigger creative challenge. But one that I was absolutely up for!

How did you go about preparing for it?

I wanted it to evolve organically over the series, incorporating the essence of the ‘Spirit of Ecstasy ‘into subjects of different nationalities and ages to give it a global appeal. It was a stepby-step process – we worked up some general themes as to what the ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ embodies, then we worked outwards from there and developed the creative strands.

We began with a couple of long and intense studio shoot days, experiment-

ing and refining. Then we went on locations in the UK and LA. I’ve tried to capture the essence of the contemporary ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ without it being too contrived.

What was the hardest part about it?

The biggest challenge was that I had such an open brief and so many images to shoot in the time I had. I’ve had to approach the project differently from any other; I’ve been mentally curating an exhibition of a hundred images as I am shooting.

So the project has had to evolve and grow along the way to make it the best it can be. Juggling so many visuals in my head has certainly been a challenge but also very rewarding.

Could you take us through some of your favourite shots of this project?

Explain your thinking behind them?

Probably the shot of my wife, Tuuli, in silver body paint. It’s an iconic shot, and I always love shooting my wife!

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She looks particularly striking in this image.

When you look through the viewfinder, what are you looking to capture?

When I’m photographing subjects, whether they are models, celebrities or regular people, I always talk incessantly to the person in front of the lens. I do it mostly to put the subject at ease but also to get a reaction so that I can capture something about their personalities – every person will have a different reaction, a different outlook. Portraiture, for me, is all about making a connection with my subject, building up a rapport, which the viewer also feels.

You’ve been labelled as a celebrity snapper, but for Rankin Live you turned your lens on ordinary members of the public. What was the inspiration behind it and what was the experience like?

The idea of Rankin Live came from technology. It was this idea that you could be in a gallery and take a photograph and build an instant exhibition, in record time. It’s incredible what digital technology can do, and the speed that it enables. A process that used to take hours and even days – can now be achieved in seconds.

I love that photography has gone from this passive medium to something inclusive and collaborative, and also something that could be a performance.

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With digital, you can work as part of a team. In the past, with analogue, you would be very much the person in power. No one else could see what you were doing because you were the person looking through the lens. I love the fact that now you can look at it on a screen so everyone can feel part of the process and enhance the image you’re creating.

I make no distinction between the celebrities that I photograph, and members of the public – people are people, and they all intrigue me, whether famous or anonymous, I am fascinated.

With the gallery exhibition, I felt like I was at a turning point in my career, technology was really starting to change the way I took photographs so I wanted to mark that event with this retrospective.

Your favourite person/s you have photographed so far?

I really don’t have a favourite. As I say, I am just always intrigued by faces and personalities, everyone gives something different. But obviously some people are easier to shoot than others, and some are more involved. I love shooting Kate Moss, because she has such an incredible presence and she can read the setup and the brief so well – she is a real professional. Heidi Klum is another favourite of mine, as she almost art directs the shoot. We did the book Heidilicious together. If I really had to choose, then my favourite person to shoot has to be my wife, Tuuli.

We have shot together so much that we almost have our own language, and she can tell what I want without me even having to say anything. It’s amazing for me to collaborate with Tuuli, because I get to try out all the ideas with her that I can’t experiment with on a normal commercial or editorial commission. With her, I really get to push myself and my work. And she always looks amazing!

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One person you would have really liked to shoot and why?

I haven’t really shot many American movie stars. I’d love to shoot Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp – I think to watch them act is fascinating and to photograph them would be as well. I don’t mean that in a fawning way. I don’t go for the photographs that make celebrities look glamorous or cool or intelligent, I’m looking for images that have a sense of humour and show that they’ve got real lives. It would be interesting to break down the hype around these kinds of people and show them in a totally different way. I’d love to shoot Nelson Mandela too.

What projects are you currently working on?

So many! I have just launched a new bi-annual fashion and lifestyle magazine called The Hunger. It’s about 500 pages long and Issue 1 came out 17th November. I’ve shot almost everything in it, and it’s been a real feat, but such a joy to work on!

Other than that, I have launched a concept called Collabor8te, which is a call-out for talented scriptwriters of short films. I will produce eight of the chosen ones next year – to try and give a voice to emerging talent in the short film world. Finally, I have three books that I am currently working on. Two are beauty books collaborating with the incredible make-up artists, Ayami Nishimura and Caroline Saulnier. The third is a book I am doing with my wife, and she is art directing it.

Could you talk a little about your collaboration with Damien Hirst?

I’ve known Damien since the early days of Dazed. We’ve always stayed in touch because we have a lot of things in common including being massive fans of Tommy Cooper. I’ve always had a fascination with the myths and narrative of the ancient world. When I realised it was a shared interest with Damien and something he was already thinking about, we thought it would be interesting to explore it in a modern context. The exhibition is the result of something that evolved organically from that starting point.

Working with Damien was great, as we both believe in artistic collaboration.

I love Damien’s work, and always have. It works on two levels, on a cerebral level, but also on a gut level. It’s emotive and provokes that gut reaction. I have always aimed for the same in my work. The appeal is more in his approach, than in a

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particular aesthetic, although obviously I admire his work on that level too.

We are both artistically generous because we believe in the end result, and understand that you can’t always afford to work in isolation to get the best work out there.

Digital or analogue? Your views.

Digital. For a long time I felt like film was a monkey on my back. With digital, I love that you can be so collaborative. For me that’s what photography is all about. I don’t want to be a lone agent; it should always be a team creating an image.

What’s the greatest threat to photography these days?

I know that a lot of people would say digital technology, but I don’t see the digital era as posing any kind of threat to the medium. The opposite, in fact. It has become more exciting with the introduction of digital imagery. Shooting digitally gives a photographer a certain freedom as you can evolve and build on the shots you are taking, as you take them. You can adapt and alter the set, the mood and the subject’s position. You can really perfect a shot and deliver exactly what the client is after. I find it liberating. Photography should be about pushing forward with technology and utilising it, not resisting it.

I don’t think that photography is threatened these days.

There are more outlets than ever and the Internet has facilitated virtual exhibitions for everyone. I think that is incredible. I’m not against this kind of change.

Which part of the process of photography do you enjoy the most?

I love it all! Honestly. I couldn’t choose.

What got you started in photography?

I first started taking pictures when I was 21. I was actually studying to be an accountant, but I was living with all these really creative people. I realised that they were having more fun, and going to the best parties. Quite honestly, I thought that it was a great way to meet girls! But the minute I began to take photographs, I knew that it was something that I could do and something that I enjoyed. So I dropped accountancy and went back to my A-levels – back almost two years – to study photography.

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