The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld rules out T-shirts for himself categorically. He finds them offensive to his taste. Lagerfeld says that a properly tailor-made shirt not only looks better but it will actually keep you cooler, dryer and more comfortable in hot weather. For at least 25 years I have not heard him change his opinion on this subject. Lagerfeld creates fashion but he has style.

Some people at certain times will buy a pair of jeans with a ready-made hole because they see other people wearing them. Mass products for the impatient. That’s fashion.

This hole in my jeans has developed naturally from wear. I first noticed it two or three weeks ago. It may not be fashionable at this moment but it is authentic. That’s style.

When I talk about creating stylish portrait photography for my clients, this is what I mean. Authenticity that brings out my sitters’ finest features.

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Portrait of a client in my studio. The client did her own makeup and there is no airbrushing. Click on the image to see it larger.

This morning I read in the Guardian about L’Oréal having to pull ad campaigns featuring actress Julia Roberts and model Christy Turlington because the images were overly airbrushed.

The ruling was the result from a complaint by MP Jo Swinson, who has been waging a long-running campaign against overly perfected and unrealistic images of women in adverts, according to the Guardian. Jo Swinson is quoted as saying “Pictures of flawless skin and super-slim bodies are all around but they don’t reflect reality.” I would add that altering portraits, unless there is some artistic reason, can also be hugely demeaning.

As a portrait photographer my approach to portraiture has always been to find my sitters’ inner essence and natural beauty – without airbrushing. I really do believe that everybody is beautiful, it just depends on how you look at them.

One aspect of this philosophy is that I do not airbrush my photographs. I do not remove wrinkles or add waistlines but my clients still look beautiful. In professional portrait photography there will always be a certain amount of legitimate retouching: I will correct the invariable spec of eye shadow, a lipstick that has run or remove an eyelash that has settled on a cheek. I will remove a temporary spot in a client’s face and I will soften wrinkles and skin imperfections, which are exaggerated by photographic lighting.

I used a professional makeup artist for my portraits of the writer Anne Zouroudi. No airbrushing was done. The photographs from this photo session are used by Anne’s publisher in all her promotional materials.

Another portrait of a client, which was also created in my studio. The client did her own makeup and no airbrushing was performed.

See what I do on my website. If you would like to book your own photo session, please contact me.

Be different! Be yourself.

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Self portraiture has always been important in photography. One variation on this subject is for the photographer to document his presence without actually being in the photograph.

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Some fetishes are amusing. The other day I wrote about my discovery that there is such a thing as a sock fetish. One result for the search term “fetish” on Google reads “Woman with objects fetish marries Eiffel Tower”. When used in a sexual context, the term fetish has dark, deviant and morally suspect undertones.

Originally a term for religious objects, fetish is used in everyday language as either an obsession with something (as in she has a shoe fetish) or a sexual interest (he has a high heels fetish). As you can see, the term comes with built-in gender stereotyping. In fashion, fetish has of course long entered the mainstream.

Its paraphernalia render fetish interesting to the artist: Tactile materials, such as rubber, lace and rope; assorted objects, such as shoes, whips and cuffs; and bodies intriguingly contorted, stretched or immobilised.

The photographs in this collection were created between 2001 and 2011. They can all be termed, in a wide sense, as fetish although very few photographs were made with this idea in mind. The images are sexual but implicit rather than explicit and emphasize the play element. The photographs portray situations and pose questions but they do not offer any answers. The interpretations and implications exist only in the viewer’s mind, which must make us question whether what we see is real.

Most of the photographs are, with a little imagination, easily identified with a particular fetish, others are a little more obscure and one or two I am sure are fetish but I cannot think which fetish exactly.

The photographs are not suitable for underage viewers.

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The bride. Photograph © 2011 Wolf Kettler.

The photographer’s model in black, moulded rubber shoulder length gloves: The photograph as obscure social commentary or a fetish for rubber gloves and their inherent domination qualities?

Model: Magdalena Wasiura
Makeup by Georgina Bliha

The doll, discarded. Photograph © 2011 Wolf Kettler.

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I feel inspired by faces in the crowd but walking up to a complete stranger and asking whether I may photograph them feels awkward. Then there are the strangers, who, through random acts of communication, cease to be strangers and become people that I have met.

This is how the portrait of Herwig in his fine food shop in Steyr, Austria, came into existence. Following on from my portraits of a watchmaker, this is another example of unplanned photography, which I created using only available light.

See more unplanned portraits

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When I was writing this post I researched, out of curiosity, the production years for the Agfa CT18 film and stumbled upon an announcement that German photographic materials producer Adox is resurrecting production of Agfapan black & white APX 100 and APX 400 film using the original formula. They will be sold as Adox Pan 100 and Adox Pan 400, respectively.

Agfa was my preferred material when we were all still working on film. The announcement is a perfect excuse to display the distinctive Agfa logo. For old times’ sake, you understand.

Also at Adox, there is new production of the (Agfa) Rodinal black & white developer and their own A49 developer, which has always been identical to the Agfa Atomal F, gets its Atomal name back.

In the UK, Adox materials are distributed by the indispensable and, frankly, wonderful Silverprint.

Lone walker returning from a day at the lake

The photograph has always had a nostalgic quality even when it was as new as the day – or perhaps the term wehmütig, which Collins dictionary translates rather inadequately as “melancholic” would be more appropriate, I am not sure. Perhaps bitter-sweet.

It seems to communicate the carefree, lazy mood of a summer’s evening perfectly, when you suddenly realise that your paradise is only a temporary abode.

With the unusually good weather that we have enjoyed of late, I thought that I would share it with you as a photograph for today.

And now I am going to visit the Silverprint site and indulge in a spot of Wehmut. Stefan Zweig comes to mind.

It is quite a mystery. If you search for portrait photographer on google.co.uk., you will find me on page one of a total of nearly three million search results and on page two for photographer, out of a total of 82 million results. I am not, however, so well placed for the search term mature nudes, so all this traffic originating from this search term is strange.

Lesley, 47

One possibility is that mature represents a fetish, a fantasy or a kink, although this particular penchant seems to sit around in a niche, twiddling its thumbs and waiting for the masses to discover it. The Google UK search engine finds only about 2.4 million search results for mature nudes, not a huge number in the wider context of the Internet.

There is another explanation: Around 80% of my clients are private clients. Of those, just under half come to me for lingerie or nude portraits, roughly the same number men and women and, increasingly, couples. Many of them are at an age that may be considered mature.

Alex B., 49

Writing this, I realise that I am struggling to make sense of my thoughts because the concept of beauty and age is riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions.

There is no doubt that we grow older later in life. When I was a child, people in their twenties could be considered young at a stretch, especially if they had long hair and donned a pair of jeans. People in their thirties were seriously grown up. Forties was statically past it. Fifties definitely old bordering on the derelict and many people promptly died upon reaching their retirement in their sixties. Live to the age of 75 and the local mayor would hand-deliver a bouquet of flowers for your birthday. Any older than that and you were a miracle.

Conversely and surely strangely, maturity happened around 45 whilst today it seems to have crept to a mere 30 years of age without anybody noticing what was happening and pointing out to maturity that it was heading the wrong way.

Today, we expect (and are expected) to live long in relative health, fitness and happiness. We expect to have a fulfilled life at an age when our grandparents were putting money aside for their funerals. Shame, though, that my generation won’t have the money to finance their golden years.

The term mature is in itself problematic. Whilst there is nothing wrong with it per se – on the contrary, who would not want to be experienced and as wise as a Buddhist monk? – it becomes laden with pre-conceptions and is almost derogatory when used as in “mature women” because it implies that the passing of time erodes beauty and desirability.

The problem is considerably worse for women than for men because it is women who are expected to compete with teenagers for beauty and desirability, driven by a sense of despair and alienation, which is kindled by magazines and advertising.

Akemi, 51

It is this pressure to conform to arbitrary and limiting classification standards, which creates the self-imposed expectations, which are always bound to disappoint. I believe that photography has a duty to examine such conflicts in society.

I dispute that the passing of time erodes beauty and desirability. My work in portrait photography centres on the individual and not their looks. I want to find and express the person in my photographs. I really do believe that attractiveness comes from the inside and has nothing to do whatsoever with looks. I call it inner beauty and age has nothing to do with it.

You can see some of my work with mature nudes in the nudes photography portfolio and in these blog posts:

• The very popular Alex B.
• A celebration of the mature body
• A portfolio for two life models
• Alex B. and la petite mort
• Lesley

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By “big skies” I understand photographs, in which the sky is either the only or, more significantly, the decisive part of the composition, irrespective of its physical size. Other elements take supporting roles to frame the sky.

It all started with this photograph of the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, which I made in the autumn of 2008. At least I think that this is how it started. The amount of sky in this photograph is quite small but seems to define the composition.

I do not set out to photograph big skies. I find the fact that these photographs nevertheless materialise somewhat confusing, perhaps even disturbing. They are automatic in the surrealist understanding of the term. I do not create them deliberately, they happen involuntarily. Perhaps it is my subconscious desire to create a different scale or an instinctive attraction to primeval aesthetics.

The big skies photographs in this gallery were created in Austria, France and England over the period of about a year.

Newton told the interviewer that he had once approached Buckingham Palace because he wanted to photograph Prince Charles’ Camilla nude. Asked by the interviewer what happened, Newton smiled and said “I never got a reply”.

The investigative journalist and broadcaster Tim Samuels photographed in 2005

All photographers have a favourite subject that they cannot find out how to contact let alone convince to sit for them. I have a whole list. Even the two most famous people I can lay claim to having photographed are not everybody’s idea of fame: The classical singer Thomas Hampson and the investigative journalist and broadcaster Tim Samuels.

I am using the term “famous people” deliberately because “celebrities” creates an instant and violent impression of cheapness in my mind.

This February, in the run-up to the elections in Britain, I became interested in then prime minister Gordon Brown. I could not understand why every photograph of him that appeared in the media was created so extremely unsympathetically.

Gordon Brown must have been one of the most photographed people on the planet and many of the press photographers out there are excellent at what they do. Is it really conceivable that there was not one photograph that did not fail to portray his values and passion?

I wrote to Gordon Brown in February of this year, when he still had an official, easily accessible address. I was luckier than Helmut Newton in getting a reply from Gordon Brown’s private office but equally unsuccessful at getting to photograph him. The letter thanked me for my “generous offer and kind words” but stated “regrettably, the Prime Minister will not be able to be photographed at the moment as he has a very busy diary”. It was a very kind and gentle letdown that made me want to photograph him even more although I suspect that he probably hates cameras aimed at him.

I love this photograph of Thomas Hampson. It reflects on the idea that all artists have self-doubts about their work. I do not think that Mr. Hampson liked it. He is the exception to the rule.

The remark that he had a very busy diary was interesting. It was stating the obvious in a way that you explain something equally obvious to a little child in a kind and not at all offensive way.

I am good at getting this kind of reply. Some time ago, I contacted the agent of Jean Alexander, the actress who plays the part of “Auntie” in Last Of The Summer Wine. I like Auntie Wainwright’s business instincts of “not letting a customer slip away”. I am not that brutal with my clients and have always felt that I should learn from her.

I did not seriously expect a reply but after a couple of months I held a hand-written letter from Jean Alexander in my hands, apologising for the delay in replying, of course declining in the nicest possible way and pointing out that she was only “dressed and wigged like this when filming”, stating the obvious to a naïve little child. I would have loved to photograph her as Auntie or as Jean.

The least they could have offered, I suppose, was a cameo role in Summer Wine. I could have been the photographer coming to photograph her for a local paper, ending up not getting the shot and leaving her shop with a collection of ancient cameras bought on an impulse. Auntie’s impulse.

After the elections and his subsequent resignation, Gordon Brown announced that he wanted to devote himself to charity work rather than taking the lucrative but far less worthy route of lectures and consultancy. At least I think he did. This announcement endeared him to me because it seemed to prove what I had suspected and wanted to capture: The intelligent, passionate man with strong moral values.

Today, I saw a piece on some website about the last letters Gordon Brown wrote as Prime Minister and I felt moved, something that does not happen often. (I cannot post a link because I have lost the page.)

If Gordon Brown’s charity work goes ahead, I expect that he will thrive in the relative obscurity of a man, who can finally dedicate himself to his passion and his values.

If you are reading this, Gordon Brown, I still want to photograph you.

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