Kaos and UFO
20 November 2017
If you have €1250 burning a whole in your pocket then you could do worse than investing in Taschen’s latest ‘baby sumo’ size book -Kaos, of the work of the renowned Scottish photographer, Albert Watson. But hurry as it goes up by €500 on January1st. 2018. Be aware however that it does not come with the necessary accessory -a taschen book standIf you are not endowed with the necessary cash may I recommend the excellent UFO book of 2010. Published by Hardie Grant Books it is still in print and at a fraction of the price of Kaos, around €60, UFO (unified fashion objectives) offers an excellent overview of this photographers work covering the period 1975-2008.
Albert Watson is one of the world s most successful fashion and commercial photographers. His striking images have appeared on more than 250 Vogue covers around the world, and have been featured in countless other publications such as Time, Vibe and on over 40 covers of Rolling Stone magazine.
Albert’s celebrity portraits include well-known and iconic movie stars, rock stars, rappers, supermodels, even President Clinton and Queen Elizabeth II (Watson was the official Royal Photographer for Prince Andrew’s wedding to Sarah Ferguson).
The production values of this book are very high. Printed on quite a weighty soft lustre paper, the black and white photos are neutral to warm in colour and colour photos have body and nuance. The binding is of a high quality which allows pages to lay pretty flat when open, a great help when viewing double page spreads. There are also many full page bleeds.
The book focuses mostly on Watson’s fashion and advertising work and if you are a studio photographer and fashion interests you well you are in the hands of a master here. Technical mastery of lighting and equipment to exacting compositions are on display here. There is so much in this book of over 400 pages.
I’m sure Taschen’s book will be excellent also, but for those of us who cannot rise to the very high cost and can forgo the very latest work (and the faux chimpanzee fur fitting), well UFO is your best option.