Exclusive Interview with Michel Haddi

Photographer and film director, Michel Haddi has photographed many high-profile celebrities while living in the USA including, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, David Bowie, Uma Thurman, Francis Ford Coppola, Cameron Diaz, Faye Dunaway, Nicholas Cage, Johnny Depp, Heath Ledger, Angelina Jolie, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, and many others. He also manages a publishing house, MHS publishing, which publishes his own books.

Currently based in London we have asked him a few questions about his life and work.

All About Photo: How long have you been taking pictures?

Michel Haddi: 40 years and I still love every minute of it!

Tell us about your first introduction to photography? What drew you into this world?

The choices in life whilst being in Paris at the time. Going out every night and working in a really fashionable restaurant and lots of divas and beautiful girls, when you are 20 years old you love it and being inspired by the works of some of the greats Barbieri, Newton etc.

What was the best piece of advice you were given starting out?

Well the best was by a photographer called Peter Knapp, who said “you must do at all costs only what you like and no one should tell you what to do“ well I have upheld that motto to this day and never a truer word spoken.

Agathe Iracema, Gala magazine, Paris, 2006 © Michel Haddi courtesy of 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

Angelina Jolie _ Adrien Brody, Vogue Hommes, Malibu, California, 1993 © Michel Haddi courtesy of 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

How do you choose your subjects? Is it a long process?

No very quick, if you work for a magazine it has always to do with some news about that person, so you don’t need to process the concept for too long. I just came back today from Naples where I did a campaign and a film for a brand called Sapio. Guilio Sapio the owner of the brand put together 50 models from his HQ there and all of them were complete professionals so it is about collaborative work and getting the shots you have in mind whilst embracing the talent you work with.

What country/people touched you the most?

The USA, Morocco, England, Italy , take your pick

Tell us about your latest Exhibition Beyond Fashion

Eugenio, and Luca the owners of 29 arts in Progress Gallery came up with the concept , as they know I transgress all the rules .

So they thought it was a good idea to show the extent of my work, not by quantity, but with 2 rotations that show the diversity of my work.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Vanity Fair USA, Venice Beach, 1990 © Michel Haddi courtesy of 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

Kate Moss for British GQ_New York, 1991 © Michel Haddi courtesy of 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

What has to date been your biggest career challenge? What is your worst souvenir?

I had to photograph 100 actors and actresses in Paris in just one single shot with 10 assistants and 5 studios, 100 limos- a real mad, mad world.

The worst - shooting in Thailand, catching a disease and slowly dying, I stayed 4 months in hospital, but the bottom line is who cares.

As for the photos you included in the show, do any stand out to you in terms of a memory or a story of the shoot that was particularly wild or interesting?

No I found of all of them and they bring me back great memories , maybe looking at them now, I would say, oh well I should have done it like this and should have done it like that.

5 things about shooting Tupac - what would they be?

Kindness, empathy, killer look , extremely well versed in poetry.

Who have you still not shot?

I don’t know I am still debating and there are a few but watch this space for the news to be revealed.

What is next for you?

Well the same as usual, more shoots, plus I am working on a new short film that I am planning, a new book on surf out in 2024, martial art training everyday, and finishing my autobiography!

Debi Mazar, British Vogue, New York, 1994 © Michel Haddi courtesy of 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

Fashion shot in Brooklyn, Campaign Magazine, 1995 © Michel Haddi courtesy of 29 Arts in Progress Gallery

Top left image: Michel Haddi by Sarah Coldron

Michel Haddi: Beyond Fashion
Tupac: The Legend by Michel Haddi

ARTIST TALK Michel Haddi: the unexpected journey from the orphanage to Vogue
Join 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery for an in-conversation between legendary fashion and portrait photographer Michel Haddi and contemporary art advisor Tiziana Castelluzzo on the occasion of the photographer's new solo exhibition Beyond Fashion in Milan. @ 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery Via San Vittore 13, Milano Within Photo Vogue Festival 2023 Thursday, 16 November 2023 Time: 18:30 RSVP: info@29artsinprogress.com

Virginia Hanusik: Into the Quiet and the Light

By Virginia Hanusik

Publisher : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City

2024 | 184 pages

In South Louisiana, where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, water―and the history of controlling it―is omnipresent. Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana glimpses the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry―past, present, and future. The book sustains our physical, mental, and emotional connections to these landscapes through a collection of photographs by Virginia Hanusik. Framing the architecture and infrastructure of South Louisiana with both distance and intimacy, introspection and expansiveness, this work engages new memories, microhistories, anecdotes, and insights from scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working in the region. Unfolding alongside and in dialogue with Hanusik’s photographs, these reflections soberly and hopefully populate images of South Louisiana’s built and natural environments, opening up multiple pathways that defy singularity and complicate the disaster-oriented imagery often associated with the region and its people. In staging these meditations on water, life, and land loss, this book invites readers to join both Hanusik and the contributors in reading multiplicity into South Louisiana’s water-ruled landscapes.

With texts from Richie Blink, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Jessica Dandridge, Rebecca Elliott, Michael Esealuka, T. Mayheart Dardar, Billy Fleming, Andy Horowitz, Arthur Johnson, Louis Michot, Nini Nguyen, Kate Orff, Jessi Parfait, Amy Stelly, Jonathan Tate, Aaron Turner, and John Verdin.

Rawsht Twana: Twana’s Box

By Rawsht Twana

Publisher : Fraglich Publishing

2024 | 252 pages

Twana’s Box' can be described in many ways: a journey through a photographer’s rare archive, documenting the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974–1992; a son’s quest to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; a young man’s way to piece together the fragments of a scattered family in a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, starts to understand his own identity in times of war. 'Twana’s Box' is not only the photo book that holds a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique insight into a time and place in a region that has since completely transformed. Rawsht has spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography – the first independent Iraqi photo agency – before immigrating to Europe. ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, hb, Kurdish/Arabic/English

Akinbode Akinbiyi: Being, Seeing, Wandering

By Akinbode Akinbiyi

Publisher : Spector Books

2024 | 252 pages

Taken across Europe and Africa, Akinbiyi’s images of everyday city life muse on the sociopolitical labyrinths of urban society

Whether in Bamako, Berlin, London, Lagos or Durban, British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi (born 1946) creates black-and-white street scenes that function as visual metaphors, ruminating on cultural change, social exclusion and colonialism’s effect on urban planning.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm

By Grace Wales Bonner

Publisher : The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2024 | 184 pages

A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer
This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.

Exclusive Interview with Michel Haddi

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