Gadfly Photographer Adam Katz Sinding Releases First Book
LIFE ON THE STREET: Adam Katz Sinding, one of the photographers behind the #NoFreePhotos movement, has published his first book, “This Is Not a F*cking Street Style Book.” The 224-page hardcover, which takes a look at street style and high fashion through a series of black-and-white images, was made by Mendo and published by Teneues with a foreword and a story about streetwear by Virgil Abloh.
It also showcases his work with designers, models and stylists including Grace Coddington, Kim Jones, Luka Sabbat and Kris Van Assche.
Katz Sinding said he wanted to do the book for a variety of reasons. “For me, it seems to be a bit ironic to take photos, which are meant to document time, but which live in this digital landscape and could just all be gone at the stroke of a delete key. A book feels good. You can touch it, you can hold it close to your eyes without irritating them. A book allows for a lasting moment, which I feel is the point of photography in the first place.”
Katz Sinding said the title came about when he redesigned his web site in 2011. Blogspot, a blog publishing service, had asked him to give the site a title, but he said he didn’t know what to say, so he wrote: “This Is Not a F*cking Street Style Blog.”
“I have always hated the word ‘blog,’ and I never liked the idea of the genre of ‘street style,’ as I find it to generally be superficial and boring, geared toward selling readers things, and monetizing content. So…why not evolve my web site’s name and slap it on the cover of the book. I personally don’t exercise much of a filter in my speech, so why would my book?”
Katz Sinding said he has a story to go with every image in the new book. “I think each image is important and complements the others and the book is a bit of a snapshot of our time. Of the current industry. Of the people who are ‘relevant’ at this moment. I think this book will be very interesting for people to see now — but much more so in three to four years.”
He has contributed to the likes of Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Elle, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior, Gosha Rubchinskiy, Off-White and Vetements. While most of the imagery in the book was created with a contemporary Nikon Pro DSLR camera, he currently works with Nikon D5 and D850.
His book includes portraits, candid shots, images from fashion weeks which includes streetwear and backstage photos. There are also images of fashion industry creatives including Abloh, Kim Jones and Heron Preston.
The American-born, Copenhagen-based lensman has been snapping since 2001. The son of a hobby photographer, he began taking photos as a child. After his father died, Katz Sinding enrolled in a black-and-white photography course, but said it didn’t make too much of an impression on him.
He launched his site in 2007, while living in Seattle and now travels nearly all year, shooting a wide variety of subjects. Last fall, he and fellow photographers made waves at the European fashion weeks, launching their #NoFreePhotos movement in a bid to raise awareness around the work of street-style photographers.
“There’s an imbalance in the industry, which needs to be addressed, and we all just want to be treated with a little bit of respect, that’s it,” Katz Sinding said in an interview last year. He said he believes photographers’ fees need to be an essential part of the conversation that brands have with the influencers they pay to promote them.
“We all just want to be treated with a little bit of respect, that’s it. We don’t want to get rich or be influencers, we just want to make a living and not have people making their living off our backs. We are seen as a passive entity,” a wellspring of photos that people can use free of charge, he said at the time.
“This Is Not a F*cking Street Style Book” is priced at 45 pounds. It will be sold on Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles and the Mendo store in Amsterdam.
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