Book Review: Color by Ben Hassett
© Ben Hassett, Color
With a title like “Color,” it is easy to assume what Ben Hassett’s new book will entail. Mainly a fashion and beauty photographer, many of the images included are Hassett’s unpublished works from magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Along with these shots, studio still lifes, landscape photographs and other abstract pieces are included to bring together the past 10 years of work. Hassett plays with bright, bold hues and commanding shadows, referencing the history and manipulation of color in photography.
© Ben Hassett, Color
In an essay titled “Photographic Color” at the beginning of the book, curator and writer Charlotte Cotton gives us a brief glimpse at the development of color photography and the challenge that it has presented for photographers. Black and white images were originally painted with water colors to bring life to the gray faces of portraiture, and over the last 200 years, many other coloring processes have been introduced, all requiring extensive post-production on the part of the photographer. The Polaroid camera allowed for instantaneous color through chemical layers that exposed, developed and ultimately fixed the chromatic value of the image, ushering in an age of beautifully colored photos that were now suitable for more fantastical manipulation.
© Ben Hassett, Color
Hassett pays homage to the tedious process of adding color to images by experimenting with the hues and tones of his images presented in this monograph. “Perhaps more than the frame, composition or ostensible subject, the rendering of color is the most personal manifestation of a photographer’s vision,” writes Cotton, referring to the way in which Hassett decides to manipulate his photos while looking through the lens and while editing what he has already captured. All of his images are crisp and clean, displaying the beauty and highlighting the boldness of his subjects leaving the honesty of the image to be questioned. Hassett’s experimentation, however, is known to be a product of his artistic license.
© Ben Hassett, Color
The main subject of his photographs is feminine beauty, and Hassett uses unnatural elements — neon lighting, fantastical themes and painted faces and bodies — to showcase the natural . His attention to detail, and obviously color, lets the subject define itself even though we, as viewers, know that the scene and the emotions were staged by Hassett to go beyond the often materialistic and editorialized content. I can almost visualize the process that was completed to prepare for this shot: the delicate application of eye shadow and the adjustment and readjustment of the lighting to produce a desired effect.
© Ben Hassett, Color
