Monochrome & Colour, a hefty coffee table work, saw the
photographer curate herself (with the help of editors) and is
filled with hundreds of her personal images spanning the 1990s and
early 2000s. As the title suggests, it's split into two distinct
sections: one for color photography and one for black-and-white
images. It is a tome that betrays McCartney's love for quiet,
intimate moments off the beaten track but, as one might expect from
the oldest child of The Beatles singer Paul McCartney, is also one
that gives us an up-close look at celebrity lives. Inside, we see
Kate Moss, Morrissey and the photographer's own mother Linda
McCartney (who famously worked as a photographer herself). But,
McCartney stresses, these photos make up only a relatively small
part of the work. And, in fact, are not essential to it. "I didn't
put photos in for it to be a celebrity or non-celebrity," McCartney
tells TIME. "I am interested in shooting all different types of
people. I find a lot of people inspirational. I'm interested in
people, in their stories." Indeed, her work seems at its most
refined when her lens shows us relaxed, candid moments before a
drag show starts, a play begins or a fashion show kicks off. "I'm
interested in that kind of training and the grueling schedule and
all that practice that goes on for a fashion show or for a theater
production," she says. "I have always been attracted to that,
wondering who those people are, what do they do and how did they
get there in their life." And how to capture this? For McCartney,
building trust is the only way. "I don't turn up and invade their
space," she says. "In that way I tend, luckily, to have been able
to get trusting, personal images. [Images] of them as themselves
rather than of them performing and pretending to be something in
front of the camera. Time Magazine In its own way, "Monochrome &
Colour" strips away the artifice of glamour as it captures the
mundane moments of beautiful people: a performer warming up on the
trapeze for a burlesque show, a model showing off her new tattoo
before a fashion show and a ballerina stopping at an ATM on her way
home from a performance. When she photographs well-known people,
such as Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne, and her father, Ms. McCartney
tries to capture moments when her subjects' real personalities
transcend their famous faces. For instance, when she took portraits
of Lou Reed in 2001, she could sense his discomfort with being
photographed. As he sat cross-armed, Ms. McCartney instructed him
to keep his eyes closed until she cued him to open them on the
count of three. "It was literally the funniest thing I've ever
done," she said. "I was like: 'Oh, my God, I feel so bad. He hates
this so much." She said she also recently photographed another
music icon, Eric Clapton. "She has great access, there is no
getting away from that she finds herself in extraordinary places,"
said Michael Hoppen, a gallery owner in London who shows Ms.
McCartney's work. "But Mary will find a situation that is very
normal, and find something very beautiful. She's very natural, and
she's interested in other people." New York Times
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