For this Man About Town fashion editorial, London based photographer Elliott Wilcox wanted to explore the simple premise of a solo artist plying his trade and searching for creativity within the realms of his studio. With poet and model Sonny Hall as his subject, Wilcox experimented with natural light to bring together a typically contemporary and cool feel to the shoot. Here, what Wilcox has to say about the shoot.

 

The inspiration was driven from the idea of an artist in studio. A lot of traditional artists would work and create in studios that have north facing windows, this stops any direct sunlight entering the space allowing soft even daylight all day. We shot in a studio with the same light feature adding a traditional method to our contemporary fashion story.

 

The shoot was built around the theme of an artist so it was important all the components of the shoot reflected this. The styling and stylist Lottie brought a mixture of traditional and contemporary pieces to complement the theme, we worked in a space with natural light reminiscent of that of a traditional artists studio and finally shot on film creating and scanning colour prints to add to the painterly aesthetic.

 

Colour photography lent itself to this shoot, we shot against a plain and sparse background allowing the colour of the styling and model to pop.  

 

We were looking for a representation of an artist, I’d worked with Sonny before and knew him as a great artist and model. He’s always beyond a pleasure to work with.

 

For me, it was the simplicity in styling that shows a true understanding of what we wanted to achieve with the shoot's theme.

 

Sonny wet his hair in the studios sink, it looked absolutely perfect.