Michel Haddi is a fun photographer. You ask him a question and he laughs before even answering. It really seems like he enjoys being interviewed. Like a real star, he tells you a little what he likes, he doesn’t always answer the question exactly but digresses as he pleases. Haddi, a citizen of the world, was born in ’56 in Paris to an Algerian mother, with Turkish, Moroccan and Berber origins and a French father whom he has never met.
Childhood wasn’t easy, the orphanage and economic difficulties soon teach him that he must fend for himself. And he will do it by throwing himself into the fray: at 18 he is a waiter during the day in a trendy restaurant in the French capital and at night he is a night watchman at the Hotel des Bains.
He seeks his way. It doesn’t take him long to find her: he accidentally meets Ben Lee, a photographer who came to England from Canada. In London, in the legendary Soho district – we are at the height of the roaring seventies – opened the Benjamin Lee Studio. Here, our apprentice photographer takes his first steps as an assistant. Michael had understood that he liked fashion, in Paris, half waiter and half night porter, he had been nourished by glossy magazines, Vogue above all, he knew the models and ther. In London she wants to learn quickly. In a few years, just three, he opened his own studio and in ’81 he began working for Vogue. Not only in London, Paris and Milan are destinations of choice: it is the fashion triangle and we are now in the wild 80s.
At the end of the decade, he leaves Europe for New York and here, among a thousand meetings, there will also be the one with Kate Mossa rising icon to which Haddi will dedicate The Legenda dedicated volume shot in Polaroid in ’91 for the English GQ and soon after he created an iconic portrait projected in all Bloomingdale’s in the United States. A star is born, we could title Kate’s biography, Michael understood it immediately. More than thirty years later we are still here talking about it. Since then he has never stopped, he has created advertising campaigns, fashion shoots, editorials, books and exhibitions.
Today, the occasion for this interview is the exhibition Michel Haddi – Beyond Fashion at the 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery of Milan from 19 October to 22 December 2023.
What were you looking for when you started making portraits?
When I was still a child, let’s say around ten years old, I was only interested in war reporters like Donald McCullin or Sean Flynn, the son of the actor Errol Flynn. My life was all an adventure so I have always tried, and still continue to do so, to preserve that precious essence. I also believe that I am funny, sad, sarcastic, many things together, which never makes me afraid of the outcome of what I do.
Irving Penn, Richard Avedon or Helmu Newton, who was your soul master?
I started as an assistant in London in the late 1970s. I had never attended photography school but Ben Lee, the photographer I worked for at the time, taught me everything: technique and tricks of analogue photography. In those years in the United Kingdom, David Bailey was the reference photographer then of course, there were the American photographers but for me, who came from Paris, the master was Helmut Newton who went wild in French Vogue: lashing, erotic, without borders and Francine Crescent, the director of the magazine, left Newton alone to prepare his crazy stories. The other great master I loved was Guy Bourdin of which Newton always said: “When I see Bourdin’s work I get pissed off, I have to do better than him!”.
My motto has always been: I want to be the worst photographer among the best! You mentioned some, but you forgot Gian Paolo Barbieri, who had a great influence on me and my work. He had been contaminated by cinema, he had participated in a film by Luchino Visconti, another source of inspiration of mine, perhaps for this reason Barbieri was among the best at the time: his photography, Rome, the “dolce vita”, via Veneto , they were a film within a film.
Have women changed since you started photographing them and if so, how?
I grew up with a single mother, I don’t even have my father’s name, I have a woman’s name, that’s all. I think women today have the strength to say no and to live a life without being told what to do.
Today we are in the midst of the revolution of gender stereotypes and immersed in reflections on gender, how will fashion and image change?
In all honesty I don’t care: this world is made up of human beings of all kinds, everyone does what they want. In the 80s I photographed for Vogue, Billy Boy, an artist in a Chanel skirt, wig and lipstick. I do what I do best without constraints and limits and I don’t need people to tell me what to do.
Looking at social media, how do you think the concept of celebrity has changed?
What Andy Warhol predicted is coming true: “Everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame.” But I want to know in twenty years what will have happened to them. When I see Martin Scorsese on Instagram, I think it’s comforting compared to the aspiring influencers who have done nothing and live in the most incredible void.
But as far as business is concerned, social media can help you develop your own brand, you can have millions of followers but it can’t last long if you only have the social strategy. Today’s young people, even if perhaps they haven’t understood it yet, need to cling to real values, the rest is irrelevant.
And always thinking about social media, how and if the photographer’s authorship will survive?
I foresee a lot of lawsuits, (laughs again). At some point, laws will come into effect that all social networks that publish artists will have to pay for each image used or a monthly fee for use. I think it will go like this.
What is the photography market today given the contraction in publishing?
The photography market is very vast: publishing, advertising, I work seven days a week with a team of ten people all over the world: it is essential to create your own universe. It’s all about being special, unique and different to attract customers from other worlds, which unfortunately doesn’t happen very often today anymore. And then I think we need to be free and not just focus on money!
Are you afraid of artificial intelligence? Do you think photography is in danger?
Well, everyone has asked me this question and my answer is always very simple: I showed some people some new images I took recently and said I used the most amazing AI tool. Everyone looked at me and said, “Oh my God, what instrument did you use? It’s incredible”. I gave them the link: Michel Haddi the head (the head), they laughed when they realized that it takes me two hours to create the most incredible AI there is with my images. I am the AI of my own work. All artists have it, they can turn a can of soup into a great work of art, Andy Warhol dixit. So it will really be like in 2001: A Space Odyssey: one day maybe everything will collapse but for now, for my work which has evolved, I am more interested in the new generations of quantum computers: I think they will help us work faster and solve the problems for us and for our creativity.
Michel Haddi in a portrait by Sarah Coldron
A curiosity: I read about your meeting with the writer Paul Bowles in which he asks her if she knows the real reason for her presence in the mahgreb and she states that it took her 25 years to understand and answer that question. Now that you understand, can you tell us?
I worked with Paul in Tangier for Arena magazine and The Independent newspaper, both in London. I took him to El Minza, a restaurant in Tangier, after lunch he said to me: “Young man, one day you will understand why you are with me in Tangier”. Years later I understood: he meant that I should be proud of my North African origins.
For twenty years I had a house in Marrakech, I came to terms with my complexion and my name. I am Buddhist and I am a non-judgmental human being, I am a contemplative person.
If you had to give advice to young people who want to follow your path, what would you tell them?
Take your balls in your hand, put them on the table and don’t be afraid: you are not a neurosurgeon, you don’t have to perform brain surgery.
Some time ago I was invited to the European Institute of Design in Rome. I did an experiment with the forty students I had, I told them: “Decide in one moment and one day in your life that everything will be glorious”. For a week they shot a short film, designed a collection and built a 3D gym, all based on a film we all knew: Rocco and his brothers by Luchino Visconti.I think that for once they felt safe.
Life is full of beauty. Just look around.
And finally, here’s a little story.
Once upon a time there was Buddha sitting under a tree, all relaxed and with a little smile on his face. A student approached him saying, “Oh master, I want to learn, I want to be you, I want, I want.” The Buddha murmured a word and told him to continue to be happy. But the student kept saying, “I want, I want.” Then the Buddha opened his eyes and said, “Young man, move twenty centimeters to the left.” The student asked why, and the Buddha replied, “You are shadowing the sun that I am enjoying, young man.”
I don’t know if the boy understood the meaning, but the moral is: enjoy the moment, the rest doesn’t exist.
To learn about the work of this author all you have to do is go and see: Michel Haddi – Beyond Fashion at the 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery of Milan from 19 October to 22 December 2023.
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