Courtesy of Man About Town.Seeing fashion shoots of stick-thin models in conflict diamonds and unattainable couture gets as tedious as K-holing in a supermarket really, really quickly, unless you're one of those shiny-booted, primped dudes sitting front row at fashion week, of course. So, it's always nice to come across photographers with their own vision who don't let the tastes of conservative advertising-addicted fashion editors dictate every photograph they take. Jamie Hawkesworth is a perfect example, in that he blends fashion and documentary photography, eccentric styling and informal portraits of kids to create his own brand of fashion photography.Jamie doesn't just shoot kids – he has plenty of amazing published shoots where the models are old enough to buy cigarettes or perform unspeakable things in hardcore porn films – but it's his photos of little 'uns that hit home, mostly because the majority just look like candid street-style photos of the most insanely well-dressed children to have ever lived. I had a chat with him about that and how dusting for fingerprints in Lancashire lead him to where he is now.South Shields.VICE: So, I read you got into photography in a bit of a weird way?
Jamie Hawkesworth: Yeah, I went to the University of Central Lancashire to do forensic science and they were really good for the practical side of forensics, so they had, like, crime scene houses and that kind of thing. In the first year, we learned how to dust for fingerprints and document them using a digital camera, which is something I loved doing. Then I started doing the law part of the course, which definitely wasn't for me, so I switched to photography, fell in love with it and started taking pictures every day.Cool. One of the things I love about your work is that it's hard to draw the line between fashion and documentary. Is that intentional?
It is, yeah. I've placed myself within the fashion world, so to speak, but I really love documenting people, teenagers and the general public, and I love the idea of the documentary portraits I like taking sitting in a fashion context. So yeah, it's hopefully subtle, but it is intentional.So how much is fashion and how much is documentary? The kid in the gold tinsel coat from South Shields almost looks like he could have been wearing that before you found him. I assume it was styled, but it looks pretty natural.
No, it's all styled. I work with a great stylist, Benjamin Bruno, and we always try to find the character who fits the clothes best within that environment, so it hopefully looks as much like they were wearing those clothes when we found them as possible, however extreme or extravagant they are. Some stuff might be their own, like some trackies or trainers, or whatever, but the key, stand-out pieces are always styled in to give it the fashion credits it needs. Obviously, it can very easily look like the most contrived photo ever if we get it wrong, so you have to be very careful.True. Do you think fashion photography has to tell a story?
Yeah, it is, but it's maybe even more important to have a relevance. I'm not saying that my photos do, but I think it's really important for a fashion image to be relevant and interesting outside of a fashion context – something that could work as well on the wall in a gallery as in the pages of Dazed & Confused or Love Magazine, you know? For example, I found a lad fishing on the Hackney Canal recently and photographed him for an issue of Man About Town. His mum emailed me that all his family had bought, like, 10 copies each, and all his mates at school knew about it, which was cool, because it almost became this whole other thing, rather than just being a fashion image in a magazine. I think if you can achieve that with everything you do, it proves that you're making really interesting work.South Shields.What is it that draws you to shooting teenagers and young people?
Well, when I was at university, I became good friends with my tutor Adam, who runs the Preston Is My Paris blog, and when I was developing as a photographer and trying to work out what I liked, he said to me, "Always produce work that's relevant to the time that we're living in right now," and that's always stuck with me. A teenager can't help but be a reflection of right now. Photographing teenagers you're not referencing something that's been done 20 years ago or trying to make a pastiche of another photo, even unconsciously teenagers are always the most naturally up to date. Like if you look closely at the kid with the tinsel jacket, he has dyed red hair. We asked him about it and he was like, "I didn't even do it, my sisters just pinned me down and done it." How amazing is having stuff like that just naturally there in front of you?Do you notice a difference between teenage style in cities and provincial towns? Because I lived in each when I was growing up and I feel like if kids got into a style of clothing in towns, they would go for it way harder than they would in a city, be that emo or goth, or whatever.
Yeah, it's funny because when you see people round east London who are really young, they seem very self-aware. They know they look cool and interesting, whereas, further away from the cities, kids seem to be unaware of how brilliant they look. But then, like you said, I went to Whitby to photograph these goths and they do know what they're doing. Although, the goths in Whitby looked like they genuinely loved wearing those clothes, whereas I feel like it would be very different photographing a group of goths down here who want to be in Ponystep Magazine, or something, you know?Whitby Goths.Ha ha, yeah. How did you come across those goth kids?
My friend Victoria did a story for Pop Magazine up in Whitby a few years ago with Dan Jackson and told me I had to check out this goth festival they hold there. When I arrived, I thought I'd missed it because there was no one around, but I wandered up to the church "where Dracula was born" and they were all just there, prancing around. Everything was just so weird and unique – it was perfect.Who's the stand-out person you've found from trips like that?
I photographed this girl in Unst, up in the Shetland Islands, and it took, like, 48 hours to get there on the ferry from Aberdeen. It's this pretty much deserted, barren island, but when I turned up they were having a farmer's fete and all the 300 locals were there. They had a pony competition and the girl who came last just caught my attention for some reason. Her hair was all over the place and she just looked absolutely amazing. If I come away with just one photo that I absolutely love, the hassle of getting somewhere, no matter how far, feels totally worth it.To The Shetlands.How do you pick those areas normally? A lot of them look quite bleak and run down – is that part of it?
Not necessarily, no. I just always try to go places I haven't been before, because then there's that element of uncertainty and the unknown. I think the unknown makes me want to explore and understand it, which is a great process for taking photos. I was brought up in Ipswich and live in London, so I go up north because it's completely unknown it is to me.Is that the way you want to carry on doing fashion photography? Are there other styles you'd like to explore or do you want to keep on developing what you're doing?
As much as I want to, I can't just keep shooting teenagers. Maybe I can, I don't know, but I need to find a way to say what I want to say using different people, because I think that's how you can really develop as a photographer.What is it that you're trying to get across in your work?
I like to think that I'm working towards something that's new and interesting and hopefully reference-free, I suppose. I might be wrong, but I feel like a lot of what I see is very heavily referenced, so when Bruno and I do something together, we try to make sure we're not taking direct references from anywhere. Also, like I said about kids being relevant, I think that helps keep the work reference-free, because I just go out there and see what's around, rather than looking at a book from 20 years ago.
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Jamie Hawkesworth: Yeah, I went to the University of Central Lancashire to do forensic science and they were really good for the practical side of forensics, so they had, like, crime scene houses and that kind of thing. In the first year, we learned how to dust for fingerprints and document them using a digital camera, which is something I loved doing. Then I started doing the law part of the course, which definitely wasn't for me, so I switched to photography, fell in love with it and started taking pictures every day.Cool. One of the things I love about your work is that it's hard to draw the line between fashion and documentary. Is that intentional?
It is, yeah. I've placed myself within the fashion world, so to speak, but I really love documenting people, teenagers and the general public, and I love the idea of the documentary portraits I like taking sitting in a fashion context. So yeah, it's hopefully subtle, but it is intentional.
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No, it's all styled. I work with a great stylist, Benjamin Bruno, and we always try to find the character who fits the clothes best within that environment, so it hopefully looks as much like they were wearing those clothes when we found them as possible, however extreme or extravagant they are. Some stuff might be their own, like some trackies or trainers, or whatever, but the key, stand-out pieces are always styled in to give it the fashion credits it needs. Obviously, it can very easily look like the most contrived photo ever if we get it wrong, so you have to be very careful.True. Do you think fashion photography has to tell a story?
Yeah, it is, but it's maybe even more important to have a relevance. I'm not saying that my photos do, but I think it's really important for a fashion image to be relevant and interesting outside of a fashion context – something that could work as well on the wall in a gallery as in the pages of Dazed & Confused or Love Magazine, you know? For example, I found a lad fishing on the Hackney Canal recently and photographed him for an issue of Man About Town. His mum emailed me that all his family had bought, like, 10 copies each, and all his mates at school knew about it, which was cool, because it almost became this whole other thing, rather than just being a fashion image in a magazine. I think if you can achieve that with everything you do, it proves that you're making really interesting work.
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Well, when I was at university, I became good friends with my tutor Adam, who runs the Preston Is My Paris blog, and when I was developing as a photographer and trying to work out what I liked, he said to me, "Always produce work that's relevant to the time that we're living in right now," and that's always stuck with me. A teenager can't help but be a reflection of right now. Photographing teenagers you're not referencing something that's been done 20 years ago or trying to make a pastiche of another photo, even unconsciously teenagers are always the most naturally up to date. Like if you look closely at the kid with the tinsel jacket, he has dyed red hair. We asked him about it and he was like, "I didn't even do it, my sisters just pinned me down and done it." How amazing is having stuff like that just naturally there in front of you?Do you notice a difference between teenage style in cities and provincial towns? Because I lived in each when I was growing up and I feel like if kids got into a style of clothing in towns, they would go for it way harder than they would in a city, be that emo or goth, or whatever.
Yeah, it's funny because when you see people round east London who are really young, they seem very self-aware. They know they look cool and interesting, whereas, further away from the cities, kids seem to be unaware of how brilliant they look. But then, like you said, I went to Whitby to photograph these goths and they do know what they're doing. Although, the goths in Whitby looked like they genuinely loved wearing those clothes, whereas I feel like it would be very different photographing a group of goths down here who want to be in Ponystep Magazine, or something, you know?
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My friend Victoria did a story for Pop Magazine up in Whitby a few years ago with Dan Jackson and told me I had to check out this goth festival they hold there. When I arrived, I thought I'd missed it because there was no one around, but I wandered up to the church "where Dracula was born" and they were all just there, prancing around. Everything was just so weird and unique – it was perfect.Who's the stand-out person you've found from trips like that?
I photographed this girl in Unst, up in the Shetland Islands, and it took, like, 48 hours to get there on the ferry from Aberdeen. It's this pretty much deserted, barren island, but when I turned up they were having a farmer's fete and all the 300 locals were there. They had a pony competition and the girl who came last just caught my attention for some reason. Her hair was all over the place and she just looked absolutely amazing. If I come away with just one photo that I absolutely love, the hassle of getting somewhere, no matter how far, feels totally worth it.To The Shetlands.How do you pick those areas normally? A lot of them look quite bleak and run down – is that part of it?
Not necessarily, no. I just always try to go places I haven't been before, because then there's that element of uncertainty and the unknown. I think the unknown makes me want to explore and understand it, which is a great process for taking photos. I was brought up in Ipswich and live in London, so I go up north because it's completely unknown it is to me.Is that the way you want to carry on doing fashion photography? Are there other styles you'd like to explore or do you want to keep on developing what you're doing?
As much as I want to, I can't just keep shooting teenagers. Maybe I can, I don't know, but I need to find a way to say what I want to say using different people, because I think that's how you can really develop as a photographer.What is it that you're trying to get across in your work?
I like to think that I'm working towards something that's new and interesting and hopefully reference-free, I suppose. I might be wrong, but I feel like a lot of what I see is very heavily referenced, so when Bruno and I do something together, we try to make sure we're not taking direct references from anywhere. Also, like I said about kids being relevant, I think that helps keep the work reference-free, because I just go out there and see what's around, rather than looking at a book from 20 years ago.
