John Gutmann

My sister got a book of John Gutmann photographs and I was really taken with his work so I scanned a few of my favorites. He had a way of making the most ordinary scenes seem special and noticing details others might miss. Perhaps part of his unique perspective came from being a German who came to America and his fascination with America's sprawling cities and multiracial crowds. He did a number of notable photographs on automobiles and even early streetart/graffiti; I personally enjoy his candid shots of people the best--I love the way he shows them interacting with their surroundings...

all by John Gutmann

Tim Walker Pictures

My Christmas present from my sisters this year was Tim Walker Pictures, a ten pound book filled with pictures, journal pages, sketches, and quotes from Tim Walker. He's my favorite fashion photographer, so I'm super-excited to have actual copies of his work in my hands (even if it is ridiculously heavy). I could ramble on about why I love his work or how he also finds inspiration in films by the Archers, but it's better to just share the visual inspiration itself...

Lula Magazine

One of the things that makes me so excited to finally have a Lula magazine in my posession is not the pretty editorials or interesting stories, but just the magazine itself. Sometimes I'm rather in love with the idea of things. The idea of Lula's magazine is one of those things I'm a bit in love with.

In an interview Dazed Digital called Lula very girl-crushy, "when you open a Lula everyone's a girl and everyone likes each other." Leigh Clark responded with, "I felt that fashion magazines are about women looking at women, but there seems to be this imaginary man in the room. It’s so sexualized. I don’t fully get that. I made a magazine of women looking at women, without that competitiveness and that hard edge that we think we need as we get older. I think it should be...trying less hard. Lula is about going back to why we liked fashion in the first place and that really starts when you’re a kid, with Halloween and ballet recitals. I was quite shy as a kid. I went to a strict ballet school and I worked well under that discipline, but when I had to perform and be free, that was hard. Then they gave me a bluebird costume, and I was fearless. I could do it. I learned really young how clothes can make you feel, how you can liberate yourself with them."