As Makin Jan Ma talked on his interview that you worked with him for his collection photos, you are doing many fashion photography. Could you explore more about your interest in fashion photography? How did you start your career in fashion photography?

© JEZ TOZER

I took this picture over 10 years ago in Hong Kong for a portfolio that got me a place on the BA Photography degree at Westminster University. Although it was one of my favourites from the series and still is, it did quickly pose a very important question which had a very obvious answer to me – Did I want to be shooting Christian Dior from the outside in or from the inside out?

I started my career in fashion and photography working as Nick Knight’s first assistant. I knew nothing and learnt a huge amount from him about a lot of things – not least about humility. He is a wonderful human being and a very humble man. Strangely given this image I had taken 10 years ago, Christian Dior was the company Nick worked with most prolifically while I was with him. He shot their fashion campaigns twice a year as well as perfume ads and commercials. It was during my time working for Nick that my understanding and love of fashion began to really mature.

Above the technical manifestations of my work I’m primarily interested in the fragility of the human spirit and the fleeting moments visually when these occur. I often relate my work to music and more specifically the drumbeat. For a long time I was interested in the moment between drumbeats. The long exposure work for Makin was the first chapter in this journey and oddly and completely coincidentally was of boys drumming which was an integral part of Makin’s narrative.

Makin Jan Ma © JEZ TOZER

I explored these extended moments with long exposures for the next 6-8 months for various editorial and advertising projects including Greek Vogue, GQ Style and Jen Tozer4Staerk.

TY at Independent Models for GQ Style / Styling David Lamb © JEZ TOZER

As you tell in your website, you are interested in representing a sequence within one image. We can find it for example in Makin’s SS08 collection, Wild In Heart. What is the interesting part to express a sequence within a image? How do you feel like to express a sequence with photography instead of film?

Over a 2 week break over Christmas I really dug into what was important to me about image making and had a rigorous overhaul of my conceptual approach. What came out the other side manifested itself in a much more raw aesthetic. Continuing the vein of challenging the exact photographic moment I became excited by the idea of taking a series of images in quick succession instead of one long exposure. I guess in a very broad way it was inspired by Edward Muybridge’s work in the late 19th century, but rather than having analysis of the anatomy as it’s raison d’etre, my process was more concerned with using it as a tool for capturing the the bits in between.

What interests me about taking a series of images per garment is the idea that we don’t wear clothes in one constructed position we walk, dance, sit stand – and much of the beauty of a garment is only revealed in the fleeting moments during these activities or even the transient moments in between them.

Ty at Independent Models for GQ Style / Styling David Lamb © JEZ TOZER

Through the series work I soon realised that imposing such a strict structure as a method of working was hindering what was most important to me. But without doing it I wouldn’t have realised quite so quickly what the burning desire in me to take pictures is really about – to capture the fragility of the human spirit and represent fashion in the context of real movements rather than constructed poses.

It’s been in many ways a slow beginning to the journey for me, but realising the excitement of capturing a delicate side of your own personality in the people you shoot is an amazing and also exceedingly humbling realisation.

Capturing a sense of their fragility is not driven by a desire to diminish their strength or position as a subject but more to reflect the fragility I feel in myself. It is also interesting when we as viewers are asked to consider our own fragility by that represented by a model or sitter in a photograph.

Now that I’ve begun to understand n this feeling I no longer feel bound by the need to define anything else, but least of all not a technical approach. Consequently I feel much freer to work in a way that suits the mood of the clothes the subject and the shoot. Taking pictures is about a feeling for me – everytime.

A lot of my recent work is much more spontaneous and is concerned with capturing a moment rather than constructing one which is both very new and very exciting to me.