On staying present, stubbornness, creative independence and treating everyone with the same dignity

Transmission 348: Interview with Max Vadukul

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Featured image: MAXXI Museum, Rome © Max Vadukul

Max Vadukul is a legendary photographer known for his black-and-white “arte reportage” images, marrying raw honesty and elegant violence. Born in Nairobi and educated at grammar school in England, he began his career at 15 working as an assistant to an eccentric American photographer based in London. His pedaling ability got him this first job, but his strong determination, passion, and coherence of aesthetic and creative vision eventually led to his name being discovered in Paris by Yohji Yamamoto, with whom he subsequently began a long collaboration. Since then he has been well known as the king of black-and-white photography.

He is a visionary photographer known for redefining portraiture and fashion photography with a raw, kinetic energy that resists convention. His work moves across the boundaries of documentary, fine art, and fashion, creating imagery that feels both timeless and immediate. He brings a uniquely global perspective to his lens, melding cultural nuance, technical mastery, and unflinching creativity. Rising quickly to prominence, he became one of the few photographers to hold a staff position at The New Yorker, where he infused the publication’s staid visual language with dynamism and edge.

Often described as a “painter of movement,” he challenges the stillness of the photograph, rendering his subjects alive with tension, poise, and narrative. He has worked extensively with publications like French and Italian Vogue, Esquire, L’Uomo Vogue, Rolling Stone, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and many others. His striking images, merging art, movement, and personality, and have permeated the collective image bank.

His career is documented in several key monographs, including Max: Photographs by Max Vadukul (Callaway Publications, 2000) and Crazy Horse (Piccolo Press, 2001). A defining voice in both fashion and portrait photography, Vadukul’s work for Vogue Paris and his role as staff photographer at The New Yorker established his international reputation. Over four decades, he has photographed a remarkable range of cultural figures, including Amy Winehouse, Mick Jagger, Mother Teresa, Julian Assange, and Donald Trump—a combination that reflects the breadth and singularity of his practice. In 2000, National Geographic produced a documentary portrait on Vadukul, further cementing his cultural significance. His presence in the international art world is marked by a series of high-profile exhibitions. In 2022, he launched Timelessat Al Safa Art & Design Library, a large-format tribute to the female protagonist, which evolved into Through Her Eyes, presented at Gallerie d’Italia, MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, and Palazzo Reale Federico II. Alongside these, his self-authored projects include The Witness, exhibited at Fondazione Sozzani, a stark photographic reflection on environmental degradation. In 2023, he continued his exploration of the power and resilience of women with the exhibition “Through Her Eyes: Timeless Strength” at Gallerie d’Italia, Milan.

What originally drew you to photography? Can you share how you became interested? Which piece of artwork or artist inspired you the most as a child? What are your favourite childhood memories related to photography and art?

I don’t think it’s something that I could say I spent my time thinking about. If you know my history a little bit, I was born in Kenya; living in Kenya was a very beautiful life. My father was a very keen amateur photographer. He was just a keen guy who was a secretary working in a company that used to take care of National Geographic photographers and filmmakers in the 60s that would go to Kenya to make documentaries, and he got interested in photography.

Essentially, I spent a lot of time with my father in the back of his car, instead of going to school, traveling through Kenya, Zanzibar, and many countries on the East African coast, which were just getting their freedom from British colonialism and imperialism. There was always some toy in the back to play with. I’m sure that had something to do with it. However, what really triggered it was moving from Kenya to England, Great Britain, and landing in a horrible place called Finchley, Woodside Park, and then eventually a hellhole called Enfield. You just couldn’t wait to get out of there.

The only thing is, my father had at that point the position of working at Carl Zeiss, Jena. Do not mistake that for the Western Carl Zeiss. There is East and West. At that time, the Berlin Wall was still up, and Jena was a company. Again, he was still doing clerical work, nothing special. But there was always a toy around. I remember that I simply would grab the camera and just shoot what was in the camera, not even understanding what an exposure was, just clicking away in the garden, and then neatly putting the camera back where it was. My father found it one day, because you do one frame a week or a month. He said that’s strange, this film is exposed, ‘I don’t remember shooting it’. When he processed the film, he saw that I’d been taking pictures, because clearly he knew it wasn’t him. It was only me. He said, ‘you keep the camera, and I’ll get you some film. You just go and do whatever you want’. That’s kind of how it started. Just the fact that it was very casual there.

Having said that, I’m sure that my travels across Kenya as a child had a lot to do with it. At the same time, photography was always around me, especially with my father. One of the things I used to do in England while at school: in the 70s, I went to a school called Enfield Grammar School. It was a very nice little town. During lunchtime, you had a one-hour break. I used to go to the local library, which was right next door to me. I used to look at all the photography books that were there, which nobody else was looking at. It was everything from Bill Brandt, Lartigue, Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, just everybody. You could also read about the technicalities of processing film, printing, and many things that you could learn just by being in the library, as opposed to wondering who you’re going to be dating. No, my focus was on photography and learning from the past, from history. I do consider that to be very valuable for me. Books are much more interesting than something being told or seeing it on a computer.

Because most kids my age at that time were more interested in girlfriends and going out late. I was just stuck in research. I just felt like, what a waste of time you guys are up to. You get one chance in life, one life, that’s it. Well, actually, I believe in reincarnation, so I’m coming back. That’s how it started. If you want to know, that’s my story. What happened after, in terms of adult life and career, is a different story altogether.

Your path has been distinct, starting with your upbringing in Kenya and going to London. What about your experience when you moved to New York and you were discovered by Yamamoto?

That wasn’t the way that went. Yohji was actually in Paris. By now, it’s kind of a well-known story, I guess.

Essentially how it works is like this. Growing up in England, if somebody wanted to know who Max was, I would say: I was born in Kenya, I lived there until I was nine years old, and I moved to England in 1969.

It was the swinging 60s or the end of it, at least. I had to change my name from Mradukant Shantilal Vadukul to Max. That was just the way it was. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get along with anybody. But I would say that by the time I was 16, I decided to make photography my life’s work. That’s just the way I saw it.

I did not pass my exams at school. I don’t have anything academic to be waving. I certainly don’t regret it. I pursued this. One of the things that you had to do at that period was that in the 60s, photographers often had successful careers already by the time they were 18.

When I say that, I mean, literally, they would have had Vogue covers, they had their own studio, they would have had clients. The 60s was a very revolutionary time. A lot of opportunities grew out of it.

I put myself under that pressure. I said, maybe I have to have a studio as well. Maybe I need to be working. I need to get things done by the time I’m 20. At that point, I think I remember dialing 500 photographers on the rotary dial phone. Pretty much all of them said no, just because I was too young.

“The through-line across four decades. ‘What connects 1984 Yamamoto New York to 2024 Y-3 Harlem is this: in every frame the body is caught between two forces. Landing and launching. Belonging and refusing. The city is indifferent. The figure insists. That insistence, held within formal clothing, is precisely elegant violence. Max Vadukul has been photographing the same idea for forty years with different vocabularies.'”—Max Vadukul

But one American voice answered the call and asked me if I could come over, as he could absolutely exploit me. I said, sure, I don’t mind getting exploited, if I can learn something. It was a way to get to London in the centre. I worked with a photographer who was technically very awesome. In six months, I think I learned a lot from him. But I felt like that was it. I don’t need to know anymore.

By the time I got to the point of knowing how I should move forward with it as a job, my question wasn’t whether I was a great photographer, or if I had the ability to become one. It wasn’t that. I simply wanted to make a living. That’s very different from saying, I want to be a great photographer. I want to be a great artist. No, my concern was more about how I can make a living from this?

Because I knew you could make a living from it. But I didn’t know if I was good enough. One thing that was very clear in my mind was that time is precious. You cannot waste time with this stuff. At this point, I got very interested in New York. I figured that the way I had to do this was to build a portfolio.

I went to America and just photographed on the streets of New York. They are great, especially at the time in 1982, 1983, there’s a lot of action there. Things were happening. It was a violent city, still. It hadn’t really changed that much. But I found it very special.

When I came back and I processed my film and did my contact sheets, I realized that, wow, I think I’ve got something here. I was able to edit it to 20 pictures. I printed all those and shopped around London to see if I could get some kind of commercial work or even editorial work. It didn’t really matter. Pretty much everybody said, you’re great, but you’re not for us. This was everywhere. I said okay and I listened to where I had to go. It was all black and white, no colour. I don’t care about colour.

Eventually, it got very desperate because I was really not making any progress. Nobody was giving an inch. If you wanted to be successful at that time, you had to be visible in Vogue. Vogue at that time was an authority. Not today, but it was then.

I even sat down with Grace Coddington, who is one of the great editors of fashion history. Today, of course, we’re friends. But at the time, she said, you’re perfect for us, but not just right now.

I said, okay, my philosophy is very simple. Always work where you are loved. Don’t go somewhere where you’re not loved. This is important because the effort and the energy that goes into what you see and produce is phenomenal. It’s a tremendous amount of energy that goes before you create, and it’s a high risk. At this point, I figured, okay, checkmate, Max, you got no hope here.

I saw a film called Midnight Express. It turned out that the producer of the film was a gentleman called David Puttnam, and he was also from my neck of town, which is Enfield.

It’s a hellhole. It’s a miserable place. If you used to look out your window, all you want to do is get out of there. The thing is, David was from my area. I went to a school called Enfield Grammar. He went to a school called Minchenden, and he became a very famous producer.

Lo and behold, I had this idea that maybe I should just call him and get an opinion. Do I have a chance in hell to make it work as a living? I dialed, again, the number of his production company. It was called Enigma Productions. He’s now known as Lord David Puttnam. He’s an aristocrat.

In any case, I said, please have David call Max. That was it. No answer, stagnation for three months. One day the phone rang, and my father said, it’s David Puttnam on the phone.

I went straight to the old phone. I said, ‘hi, David‘. He said, ‘yes, Max, what can I do for you?’ Straight to the point. I said, ‘right, look, I’m a young photographer. I know in the past, you were an agent to photographers in the 60s, like Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Guy Bourdin. I mean, you’ve got experience in this. I’m just trying to get an opinion. I just want to know if I could show you my pictures so I could understand if I have a chance to make a living.’

There was silence on the phone. He just went quiet. He said, ‘Max, I don’t do this sort of thing’, to which I had no answer. Then he came back. ‘It’s all right. I tell you what, you put together like ten of your best pictures, whatever you think is great. If I like them, I’ll call you. If I don’t like them, you pick them up.’

“Central Park. Pure kinetic blur. The motion-streaked road behind her pulls the eye left while she drives right. The reach of that gloved hand is desperate and commanding simultaneously.”

I said, ‘okay, that sounds all right’. He said, ‘is that fair?’ I said, ‘that’s very generous. Thank you.’ The next day, I took the pictures over, because it was easy to do. He did call.

He said, ‘please come by’. At that point, he had my photos on the floor. There were 20 by 16 silver argentine prints on Agfa paper, all photographed on Kodak Plus X or Tri-X, all printed and developed by me. You did your own printing. I mean, you didn’t send it out. You had to know how to process it. You had to be an alchemist. You had to know how to do the darkroom work. That was the most important part.

At this point, he looked at it and said, ‘well, Max, you’ve certainly got a point of view. I won’t use the word talent, but you’ve got a point of view. You could do very well.’ I said, ‘that’s positive, that’s fantastic. Thank you. But do you think I can make a living?’ He said, ‘well, making a living is a different thing.’

He said, ‘here’s the thing. You could do it, but you can’t allow people to change you. They will try to change you. Let’s say you get a break and you’re working for the prestigious magazines and you’re doing fine. Eventually, they’re going to tap your shoulder and say, can you do this? Can you try that? Can you see it this way? Can you make the girl smile? You have to say no. You just have to do your thing.’

I said, ‘okay, fine.’ To me at that age, I was like 19 or 20. Very close to that. That was massive. It stuck with me.

As I was leaving, he said, ‘Max, before you go, I’d like you to photograph my public relations team, my producers, and my writers. Could you do that? Because I don’t have enough PR pictures of them as a group.’ I said ‘sure.’ He said, ‘no, no, no. You can’t just walk away. I want an invoice from you.’

“The chain-link fence shots. The coat billows like a wing that has just been struck. The arm reaches out not in welcome but in warning. The face turns away from whatever is coming. There is tension in every diagonal. The geometry of the fence cuts the frame like wire.”

I said, ‘an invoice?’ I’ve never raised an invoice in my life. I don’t know what it is. Basically, what he’s doing is asking you; he’s teaching you that you have to learn, if you want to make a living, the value of your work. What are you worth? What’s your time worth? Make an invoice. Tremendous, if you look at it backwards. He’s actually educating you and telling you this. So I said ‘okay.’

He said, ‘but before you do the invoice, make sure you don’t burn me;’ that means make sure it’s not so expensive and outrageous. I put together the photography. I did the pictures. I took oversized contacts to him. He liked everything. It’s fine. I gave him my invoice. He looked at it, and he gave me a cheque on the spot. It was about 600 pounds.

He said, ‘Max, that’s a lot of money for you. You’re a young guy. What are you going to do with this? Have a party for your friends?’

I said, ‘no, I’m not going to have a party for my friends. I’m going to go to Paris, because there they respect black and white photography. They have Jean Loup Siéff, they have Guy Bourdin, they have Helmut Newton, and they have a tradition; of course, they invented photography. They’re not going to say no to me. I think I’m going to do that.’ He says, ‘well, very good. I wish you good luck.’

‘But before you go again, what I just did for you, make sure you do that for somebody else one day when you are maybe famous, successful. Promise me that.’ I said, ‘yes, if that ever happens, I will definitely do that.’

I went to Paris. Essentially, I saw the three magazines that were really important to see at that time. You have to imagine this is like 1983, 1984. You had Marie Claire, Vogue Paris, and Elle magazine.

Now those labels today are crap. They’re just worthless. But back in the day, if you weren’t seen in any of those magazines, you didn’t have a chance. I mean, it was really a glorious time. It was the golden years. You could rush out to the newsstand and grab a magazine and just be blown away by seeing, oh my God, look what Sarah Moon has done. Look what Guy Bourdin has done. You’d see amazing pictures and pages flowing nonstop. It was very exciting.

This photograph “is the quietest and perhaps the most subversive. The old man in his tweed moves forward on the ground. The model rises behind him, airborne, silent, in Yamamoto’s oversized proportions. Two worlds, two centuries, in a single frame. The violence here is conceptual.”

I said to myself, ‘okay, I saw Elle magazine first.’ They said, ‘you’re great, your work has got something, but you’re wrong for us.’ Then I went to see Vogue magazine. Obviously thinking Helmut was there, that was a chance. They said, ‘you’re great, but you’re wrong for us.’ Okay, one more to do, Marie Claire.

Right there, there was an art director, his name was Walter Rospert. He was a chain-smoking French art director. Cigarette here and elbow here, just huffing away, incredible. He liked it. I thought, okay, maybe I have a chance, finally, I might get an assignment.

He said, ‘look, your work is very strong. It was all reportage, basically, people on the street in New York.’ He said, ‘but we don’t know how to use you. But I think I know somebody who could use you and would really benefit.’

He dialed the phone number and said, ‘hello, I’ve got a photographer here. If you don’t take him now, somebody is going to get him and you’re going to regret it. He’s perfect for you right now. You must take him immediately.’ He gave me an address.

I went over to this address and it was Yohji Yamamoto, rue Saint-Martin. I’m wearing the shirt right now. I’ve been shooting Yohji for 42 years.

I arrived there. I don’t know who he is, never heard of him, know nothing. Somebody waits for me and takes my box, disappears. Two people come out. One of them was Marc Ascoli. The other was Yohji. He simply said, ‘he wants you to shoot his next campaign.’ I was like, ‘what?’ He said, ‘yeah he likes your work and he wants you to shoot the next campaign.’

I was like, ‘wow, that’s incredible.’ There was a model sitting next to me. She said, ‘do you realize what just happened?’ I said, ‘no, I don’t.’ She said, ‘this is like the coolest designer you could be shooting for. He’s just asked you to do his campaign.’

At that point, he said, ‘what do you want to do? I said, well, I’ve always had this thing of going to New York and photographing models as if they were birds and they land on the pavement and life happens around them.’ He simply said, ‘do it.’

Before I knew it, like in a week or two weeks, we were in New York casting and we were shooting for two days. The catalogue that was produced at that time was how I got my career started. That was a very, very powerful piece of work that’s still modern today and set the standard for who I am. That’s how I got started.

After that followed another one in Rome. After that, doors started to open everywhere. As David Puttnam had said, they would come after you, but they may not want to do exactly what you do. They might want to change you. That happened a lot. But I was very sure and very stubborn and extraordinarily independent. I’m willing to walk away from something if it doesn’t suit my temperament and aesthetic.

From there on, I was living in Paris for a little bit. At that point, the work had become very visible. New York at that point is a very important city to be a photographer. Magazines in New York were asking me to fly there to work. Suddenly, before I knew it I was flying first class from Paris to New York shooting for Mademoiselle magazine, shooting celebrities. Amazing; how did this happen?

There was no email, there was no internet. People could only find you because of word of mouth. If somebody knew the makeup artist or hairdresser, they could possibly track you. Things started like that. New York became quite the place to be.

By the time I got to 1985, I was sought out by Sting to do his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. He just left the band, The Police; they broke up so he could do something solo. I remember very much being at the A&M building, and they said, ‘you’re up against Helmut Newton, but he’s chosen you.’ I said, ‘well, great.’

Sting said, ‘do you want to go to Barbados and work with me? It’s about two weeks, a bit boring, I think.’ I said, ‘two weeks in Barbados sounds really boring. Let’s do it.’ That’s how it happened. From there on, many other things followed.

1985 was a very big year. Just everything happened. It was an extraordinary amount of work that was done in that period. The Willi Smith film; He’s one of the foremost African American designers who existed at a period that you wouldn’t even see people of colour doing things. He was amazing.

We went to Senegal to make a film, took an alligator wrestler with me from Florida, who was the only white guy in the film. He ends up being a tourist traveling through Senegal with a suitcase and out of the suitcase pops out people wearing his clothes. It’s five days in the life of a suitcase for the dance troupe of Senegal. It was a beautiful story. It’s still very relevant. The film is at the Cooper Union University in New York.

From 1985 onwards, everything happened. I started to do Italian Vogue for the first time, black and white again, very powerful stories. At that point, I moved to London, where I started to do some commercial work for TV; television spots were quite fun to do.

Eventually I moved to Paris to live, in1987, and I started working for Paris Vogue, really at a high level; we’re talking about doing lead stories for Prêt-à-Porter during the season. Between 1985 and 1987 is where I made my second phase of my work, which is very important.

Yohji is the longest part of my career, 42 years of work still; we just did something that’s out right now, for 2026. The Paris Vogue work was really defining me as a photographer who could shoot fashion. I don’t describe myself as a fashion photographer, but I can shoot it. I think fashion photographers are just obsessed with that, and that only. I don’t see myself that way. I just see myself as a photographer.

At that point, from 1987 to 1995, we lived in Paris; I was married at that point with twins. We moved to New York in 1995, which brings me to your question about New York. This is much more of a serious move, because it was a chance to end up working at The New Yorker, where Richard Avedon had instigated a process whereby I could work there.

Dick and I were good friends, and he was very encouraging as well. This is kind of important if one of your questions is what advice do you have to photographers; we’ll come back to that later.

He was definitely a very kind admirer of my work, and encouraged me to continue in that way. But one of the things he wanted was that he was doing The New Yorker magazine at the time. He said, ‘I can’t do everything by myself, Max, I’d like you to be there. Could you do it?’ At that point, I got the contract to be at The New Yorker, which was amazing.

To be at The New Yorker, to be Indian; I’m 100% Indian. My mother is Indian, my father’s Indian, I grew up in Kenya. The chances of a brown man, colored, with a funny name, making it in a very privileged backdrop is, well, I would say it’s impossible. Certainly at the time it was impossible. Even today, I would say I don’t see anybody working in Paris who’s Indian. I mean, there aren’t enough chairs for that.

That was how that happened. By about 1996, approximately, The New Yorker was a very important foundation of my work as well, because it gave me access to culture and to really work as a portrait photographer first. That’s what I based my career on: portraits first, reportage second, and fashion is there from time to time.

That career, of course, continued for a long time. I stayed in New York till 2019. My wife wanted to move back to Italy, because she’s Italian. She said, I’ve been here 27 years, Max.I want to go back to my people, my culture, my religion. How could I possibly say no to someone you’re married to for such a long time? She is living in New York, a place she didn’t like, but she gave me 27 years of a life. I simply said, ‘of course, I’m looking at a window, which is now maybe the next 25 years, they’re yours, you can do whatever you want. Of course, I’m going to say yes.’

I moved to Milan, it was fine. Not a stranger to Milano or Italy, because of course, I had a very strong relationship with Italian fashion houses and magazines and art directors. But six months later, we hit COVID.

At that point, COVID was great. I loved it. Lockdown is my favourite word. I’m only kidding. But why? Because I was able to revisit all my work. 39, 40 years, go through everything and suddenly realize what a rich archive I had. I was right to be stubborn and right not to betray myself, not to try to please people.

I did exactly what I wanted. The stuff that I threw out, deleted; there’s no room in my hard drives. Elle magazine, any commercial work out the window, just delete immediately, erase, I don’t care.

When COVID was finally over and lockdown was over, I began self-authored work, which is really taking me to the point of doing The Witness in 2018. But then I went back in 2019 to do the second part of it on my own finance. From there on, I ended up doing Through Her Eyes, which is a project born really out of what women’s roles were per decade during the Second World War. Certainly during the Soviet era, women were really running the industries because, well, I think something like 29 or 30 million lives were lost, so women were really doing the work.

I had this idea to take a certain character I’d met called Ludmilla, and she was somebody who I felt could carry this muse. I explained to my wife, who has pretty much been the stylist behind most of my fashion images, what I wanted to do. She loved the idea.

We built this story. This ended up being an exhibition that I never planned, I never expected, but it ended up being at the Galleria d’Italia, which is a very prestigious address to have an exhibition. Some 50 prints were exhibited, 180 centimetres wide.

After that, we went to the UAE  at the Al Safa Art and Design Museum, where we had an exhibition there. Then another; the cherry on the cake was the MAXXI Museum in Rome. To have an exhibition there for a month with this particular installation was amazing. If you can take Max to the MAXXI, well, max it.

Your black and white photography has a signature “elegant violence.” You’ve often rejected color photography, what is it about black and white that still holds power for you in the digital age?

It’s not fair to disguise or think of it in terms of colour versus black and white. It’s really got nothing to do with colour being something I don’t like, but there has to be a reason for it. Sometimes some things are better in colour.

But for my purposes, for my temperament and personality, colour just gets in the way of the emotion. It’s just a lot of other issues. It’s almost like driving a car on a motorway with 20 lanes, and which one are you going to pick? I’d rather just pick two lanes, maybe just one. It’s a very disciplined way to get to a point and make a communication.

I find black and white the most powerful way to communicate. I would pretty much turn most things in black and white. Unless there is a reason to shoot colour, i.e. number one, you’re super well paid. Okay, fine. I shut my mouth and give you what you want. But if you’re doing editorial or things that are supposed to be creative, that’s a very different consideration. It has to be very well thought of. It has to be very well planned.

Even then, I think that black and white for me is in the tradition of great photographers. Right behind me, you’re seeing The Witness, that I did in Kolkata in 2019. This picture is actually at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Modern Contemporary Art in New Delhi. They bought two prints, which I’m very proud of. Of course, I’m proud of selling anything. Anytime a print sells, it’s amazing. But especially if a museum gets it in the acquisition, it’s pretty great.

In 2015, the business of photography, fashion work, just collapsed. The industry had started to cannibalize itself. Partly in my opinion, just that they had allowed what was a very private, secretive place to be, front row. You went to a show to the front row, you had journalists sitting in the front, but suddenly they allowed people who were like bloggers.

I don’t know who these people are. I don’t know if they know anything about art history or the history of fashion. The cannibalization process is now complete. Well done. Great job, guys.

What role does imperfection play in your work? Do you ever leave flaws intentionally?

All I kept hearing was polish. This is an obnoxious old word that’s been used nonstop, especially when the digital camera has been really making a play in the field. Polish it. People don’t even know when to stop moving a pixel around.

I wouldn’t say imperfection, but it is a reality. We are imperfect. I think that you go to a temple in India. There are pillars cut in marble and they’re leaning deliberately just to let you know life isn’t perfect. Imperfection is everywhere.

We’re only perfect when we are dead. When death is present, that is the perfect form of perfection. Perfect equalizer. There’s nothing to it. But while we’re alive, everything is imperfect. I like it.

I like that a person’s got one leg shorter than the other. Maybe you fantasized about being with a seven-foot-tall Amazonian female to marry and you ended up marrying somebody who’s shorter than you and has a cute little look. That’s imperfect to me and I love it.

There are expectations humans have about perfection, which I think can get you into a lot of trouble. Just look at the number of bodies walking around that have been plastified; it’s kind of horrific to look at. Once you start with that, you can’t stop.

“This image is the most visceral. The model launches off a subway entrance mid-air, knees splayed, arms pinned back, jaw lifted. The punk beside her barely registers her. She is utterly indifferent to gravity and to him. That is elegant violence. The city does not notice. She does not care.“

“That banana skin is the whole point. It’s the street talking back. It’s the grit that makes the leap mean something. Remove it and you’ve got a fashion photograph. Keep it and you’ve got New York in 1984. Raw, unpredictable, slightly dangerous. The model is airborne above a city that doesn’t care whether you live or die. That banana skin is evidence. It’s proof the street is real. Today a retoucher sees dirt and removes it. No conversation. They’re cleaning the image when they should be protecting its soul. That’s the difference between fashion photography and my work. I was never just photographing clothing. I was putting clothes inside a living city and letting the city win the argument. The banana skin stays.“ Max Vadukul

There’s nothing better for me than to look at somebody aging gracefully, really beautifully. There’s a cover I did for Italian Vanity Fair you should look at and it’s a very old couple. They just got lines, lines everywhere and they’re kissing. It’s quite tight in black and white. The picture is really in demand, but I’m not too generous about allowing the usages.

Imperfection is very important in my work. I like the flaws there. There’s a picture in the Yohji catalogue, 1984. There’s a girl flying out of a subway station on the streets and there’s a punk guy next to her. There’s a banana skin right there on the steps. Now, if this was done today, they would remove the banana skin, but it’s there. I’m not touching it.

I think imperfection is very correct to leave because it reminds you are human. That’s why I like working and I align very well with the Japanese culture and the Japanese way of doing and seeing photography and why I like working with Yohji, because it’s just about imperfection. Asymmetrical, not symmetrical. I don’t like symmetry. I like asymmetrical.

Your “arte reportage” approach is frequently characterized as infusing fashion and portrait photography with freedom and intense thrilling energy. How do you develop that spontaneity, particularly when dealing with well-known people?

I think that people wouldn’t come to me anyway. Let’s say somebody well-known. You’re talking about high-profile celebrities, right? Or people who are really famous. They know what I do. For somebody to come to me is like you’re going to a very exclusive restaurant to taste something. You can’t go there unless you’ve done your research.

The level of feeling that I look for in any given moment is really about your personality. I don’t say that; everybody I approach is pretty much treated with the same dignity that I approach Mother Teresa or I approach the Nobel laureates, 22 of them in one go, or how I approach the story of the girls who are landing in New York on the streets like birds. It’s just me. That’s my thing. It’s what I do. I don’t really think of people as celebrities either or important. They’re just people.

Have you ever had a nightmare photo session: technical problems, delays, or something else? Could you please share with us a particular situation when you had to deal with a tumultuous shooting environment and how did you manage to turn it into a compelling and powerful image?

I would say the most difficult situation I’ve had to face is for The New York Times T Magazine. I had asked them if I could photograph Julian Assange.

Julian Assange back in 2010 was celebrated. He was a star. The media loved him, and indeed, many governments in the West were fascinated by him and loved him. Why? Because he was exposing; not him personally, the WikiLeaks site where you can upload information if you think that you have information to put somebody who is doing something corrupt and not right on notice. It had an effect.

He had succeeded in that. People had disclosed so-called dictators in Africa and other countries who were having to resign or had to get out of the game. People thought, this is great; he’s able to destroy people’s bad behaviour.

Suddenly, to be asked to do that, I thought he had a very interesting thing going on here. I liked the idea that the governments couldn’t control it. Once you elect a government, once they get inside, you can’t trust them. That’s just the fact. Let me ask you, do you vote?

Yes, I do.

You can vote but nothing changes. Am I right or not?

Well, I hope things could change, that way I vote. Just for this. I hope!

You vote because you think you live in a democracy, you have a chance. But you haven’t, absolutely not. That was what Julian was speaking about.

I got the permission to go and do it. He’s going to be in Sweden, in Malmö. I travelled with an editor and a digital tech with me, who doubled up as an assistant as well. We went after Julian. I set up a studio in a hotel, lights and everything up. He didn’t show up.

Jesus, it’s eight o’clock in the evening and he’s not showing up. Suddenly, there was no communication. We couldn’t find a way to get a hold of him. The magazine in New York absolutely didn’t want me to come back unless I got the picture. They said, no, stay and find him. We stayed.

We tried to find him. I went around asking lawyers, people who are loosely connected with him, where I could find him. We’ve been there for five days. No chance. We even went to his lawyer’s office and presented ourselves. We were almost kicked out, at which point I said, ‘look, before you kick us out, can I take your picture? Because you’re his lawyer.’

He said, ‘I’m too busy. I’m dealing with murder cases. I don’t want pictures taken.’ In any case, through him, at least I understood a little bit about where he might be. He gave me a little clue. Could be in London, could be in Berlin, it could be in some place, but I can’t tell you where.

I figured at this point, after almost eight days there, the rest of my team went back. I still didn’t have the picture. The editor-in-chief at the magazine wanted me not to come back without the picture. He said, ‘you stay there and come back with the picture.’ I said, ‘I’m going to stay.’

I ended up going to a couple of cities. I think I went to Berlin, then back to Sweden, and then to London, because there’s an organization, a bit like Amnesty, that was knowing about where he was and said, well, he’s going to be at London University to do a talk. I ended up, eight days later, on my own, with my kit, just trying to get a picture of him.

Eventually, I did get a shot of him, and it was very brief. It ran in The New York Times T Magazine, and the title of the story was called The Gift of Information. It was for the Christmas issue.

What’s incredible about it, it caused a lot of trouble, because at this point, he was starting to become a bit annoying to the people who like to control the narrative. Suddenly, there was a video that had been released on WikiLeaks. I think it had to do with an Apache helicopter in Iraq. I think it was shooting like a video game. Reuters journalists were being killed. This video is out there. I think it’s called Collateral Murder or something. They can’t stop it now, because it’s out. But at that point on, they didn’t want him to exist.

I ended up with somebody I thought was absolutely just incredible, and he was amazing. At the same time, I didn’t really spend time with him, but I got a second chance to spend time with him. That was when Rolling Stone America asked me to go find him again and shoot him.

This time, he was in London, easier to find, because they’d put an electronic bracelet on his leg; in a way, he was kind of under house arrest. I remember spending time with him, and it was a very, very peculiar situation to be in. Because first thing, he said, your phones have to be put in a microwave. You can’t have phones around. They’re listening to everything we are saying anyway.

We ended up going to this sort of a big farm. Outside, he said, ‘you don’t want to talk inside.’ We just wandered around talking. He basically told me, literally, what was going to happen, and how much control they’re going to have over everything, and why suddenly he had become the person who they thought was a powerful tool for them. But he was also pointing out the vicious corrections that so-called democracy carries out, very, very punitive. The poor man has been in prison for, I don’t know, 15 years, a long, long time; he’s in solitary confinement for doing what?

He didn’t commit a crime. He gave me enough information. The article ran, of course, and I got an amazing story with him this time. I got great pictures of him, really a long day with him, in the rain, on his face, pouring; he had a dog he liked. We did some great stuff together. But he told me stuff I can’t say on here, because it would be dangerous.

He really made me aware of what’s happening; we’re living with it right now. Artificial intelligence and all those questions that you’re probably going to ask me. That was a very big calamity thing to do. Those assignments are very difficult to control, very difficult to get a result from, because you have to be like a producer, you have to be a troubleshooter, you have to know how to negotiate, certainly be a good therapist, psychologist, and then eventually get to the picture. It’s a very tough journey and you can end up with one frame.

You used a cosmic orb in your series “The Witness” to examine climate change. What was the inspiration behind introducing this surreal element, and what message are you hoping to convey?

I thought about this, so I think you should know this. Firstly, The Witness began during an assignment I was doing in India. They wanted me to go and do something called The Green Issue, and it was about sustainability. 2018, the narrative was about sustainability. I call it greenwashing. With my eyes today, it’s greenwashing. But at that time, everybody’s going on and on about sustainability, saving the planet, we must save the planet. The planet’s going to be fine.

I continued to do this assignment on my own afterwards. I paid for it. What I encountered was not a concept. It was something immediate, landscapes and environments that felt overwhelmed and at times almost unbearable. What I saw was really ugly and nasty and unbearable, smelled bad, it was horrible.

There was a rawness to it, though, something difficult to look at directly. In the images, the silver orb is not constructed in a sense like Photoshopped or added; it’s real. That object you see in the pictures is a real thing. It existed in front of my lens, and over time, it became a presence, something observing or intervening, a bit like an alien coming from above, or maybe God comes down and says, ‘what the hell have you done with the planet?’ Because it’s all about reflections. I wasn’t interested in explaining or correcting what I saw.

The work is not about solutions. It comes from being there and from looking closely, and from staying with that orb. There’s tension in those pictures, there’s a lot of layers in it; it’s very complicated.

If there is a transformation in the viewer, it happens within the image itself, where something harsh and hard is held long enough to reveal a different kind of beauty. The meaning is not fixed; the image remains open, but it can carry a trace of a real encounter. For me, it’s not about climate change.

When I was promoting it and speaking, I was part of the narrative. But then as I stepped away from it more and more, I realized that I was just like a robot repeating something that everybody else has been chiming on about. It’s really not true, because human behaviour is so disgraceful; we don’t take care of our responsibilities.

For me, those pictures are not about climate change; they’re just about powerful pictures. They’re just strong photography. If you want to make it into a green issue or whatever, they’re black and white; there’s nothing green about them. You can invent any narrative you want from it. But for me, they were just another way to create something beautiful out of something that was so ugly.

To stand on 75 metres of garbage that hasn’t been cleaned up for, I don’t know, politics, money, is pretty nasty. I was wearing the masks before COVID going on those locations, that’s how bad it was. Just to be on location with a mask, with the gloves, because it smells so bad. I consider basically humans do this to themselves.

I go to Japan, Tokyo is clean. Why? Because nobody waits for the government to pick up the garbage. You see something wrong, you fix it. That’s how it should be. But we don’t do that. I live in Italy, it’s a beautiful place, but sometimes I get annoyed when I see people just clearly see something’s not right. There might be dog poop on the street, but nobody’s going to pick it up. You won’t see that in Tokyo. I didn’t see a cigarette butt while walking down the streets of Tokyo. People walking around here, eating food while they’re walking; disgraceful to me. Stop it, sit down and eat. In Japan you’re not allowed to walk and eat.

What part, in your opinion, does photography play in influencing public opinion and bringing about change in a world growing more complicated?

Firstly, Dominique, the world has always been a messy place. Complicated? I wouldn’t go down that road. It seems complicated to some people because you’re getting information now that you didn’t get before. It’s instantly available to you, just right there. But it’s not complicated. You can make it complicated if you want, if you like that. For me, it’s pretty simple.

Photography for me is to be in the moment. That’s the thing. People have problems with their lives or perceptions of life because they don’t really live in the moment. They are living in the future, so they’re going to guarantee pain. Or they live in the past and they’re guaranteed extra pain. If you are living in the moment, then you have the possibility with photography to be there.

One of the things that I really have a problem with is AI, because it’s got nothing to do with photography. That is a subject that is probably the most understated subject that people are thinking and not thinking about. Everybody’s excited about AI. Of course, AI is very useful, but as a photographer, things happen.

Number one, photography stops being a reality if you allow complications to enter. Then it’s optional. Photography is not just about the final image. It’s about contact with the world. When you have a camera, you have the lens, light comes through the lens, it passes through, and it leaves a signature. That little connection, the chain matters. You’re not photographing, you’re not manufacturing; that’s the moment. You were there, it happened, and that’s photography.

We’re dealing with now an awful lot of lies and people don’t even know what they’re looking at. Photographers that I admire are like Moises Saman. He’s a Magnum photographer. He’s Spanish-American. This is a book called Discordia. He photographed the Arab Spring.

He’s really one of the most amazing photographers I know of. He’s just incredible. The situations he’s put himself through are just staggering. I can’t even begin to show you what he does, because it’s something you would have to see with your own eyes.

That’s photography. There are photographers and photographers that are good. They play a very important role, because you have to be there. You might just get one frame, one click, but you are there.

What role does it play? It transmits information, and sometimes that information can be so powerful that a war can change, which is why today you are seeing that while there is chaos going on in the Middle East, you’re censored. The greatest level of censorship is existing right now. You’re not seeing anything about what’s going on, because they’ve censored it.

Yes, you have all the information you want, because you feel like a superhuman being. I’m a genius. I’ve got this iPhone. I can have AI do all these things for me. But try asking some questions connected with what’s going on. You’re going to get a weird answer. Very evasive.

It’s complicated only because you’ve got so much stuff going on, but it’s also very dangerous, because they’ve got all the information they can give you, but they also control who sees what. The photographer that gets the picture; you could be arrested now if you took a photograph that is telling the truth.

You’re not seeing images coming out of the situation that’s happening in the Middle East right now that is really telling the truth, because it’s all censored. But a photographer like the guys in Vietnam who had all the images that were coming back to America; they had to stop the war. Public opinion turned against it. Since that day on, they’ve never allowed it. They try to say, well, if you’re going to be a photographer in these places with chaos, you have to be with the army. We keep an eye on you. No, that’s not the way it’s done.

Things have changed very quickly. I don’t do conflict photography. But the closest I’ve gotten to danger, honestly, has been with Julian Assange. That was pretty dangerous. Not because I was getting into an act of violence or anything like that, or somebody’s going to attack me, but because I know that the forces that are watching him are really the darkest.

I’m sure they know who I am. I’m sure they know I’ve spent time with him. God knows what he’s told me. I’ve never revealed too much stuff to anybody, because basically everything he said has come true.

Is there an image that exists nowhere, on no film, no memory card, yet remains crystal clear within you in your mind? A moment light, or fate, revealed but you couldn’t capture, because there was some technical problem, or because you didn’t get there in time, but it’s the perfect shot that is only in your mind, and you still think about it? 

Try to have a camera with you always, if you can, because you never know when stuff happens. Today, unfortunately, it’s this stupid object (A.N. smartphone), which is the thing everybody walks about with. I’m sure there have been occasions that I wish I had taken that picture. I just cannot bring to my memory something like that ever happening.

But look, if I could look back in time, I would have loved to have been the photographer who had the picture of JFK getting assassinated. That would have been a phenomenal photo. Also not to mention, probably would have been kidnapped and beaten up or something. They don’t want that picture out. It’s amazing that footage exists, and we don’t see it. Those kinds of events in history are life-changing. I really think that to have been a photojournalist in that area would have been something.

One of the things I must say, I just did a project. It’s been the most extraordinary project ever proposed to me. That was the story of the Buddha relic. I was asked to do that in Bhutan. That was amazing.

To see the bones of the Buddha to be seen by a very devout Buddhist country was really amazing. That was just incredible. To be in the presence of that, to meet as many monks as I had met, over 27 days, I was with them. To be with them was really amazing, because that’s the kind of story which I could not have dreamt of, but it was proposed to me.

If I’d said no, that would have been a very stupid thing. Because 27 days or 20 days is a long time to be away. But I couldn’t have thought of a better thing that I could photograph. I probably would have never considered the bones of the Buddha. If somebody said they found the bones of Jesus Christ, what do you think would happen? How many people are going to go and see it?

In my case, this was very, very special, because I’m Indian. I grew up as a Hindu, with a smattering of Buddhist culture attached to it. For me, it was very real. That was amazing. There are moments in photos that you can miss, but there are also realities. If you didn’t get it, it was meant to be.

Among all the photos you’ve taken, is there one you feel particularly connected to – one that holds a deeply meaningful story? Can you share it and tell us the story behind it?

One image. I think the photograph of Mother Teresa that I took is kind of extraordinary. It’s one image that, firstly, at the time I photographed her, I was very much in an atheist mode. When I got there, I was buying into the narrative: ‘she’s a money monger, she just steals money.’ That’s basically how the West was seeing her in America.

But when I got there, in front of her, it matters if you’re present. Which AI can’t do. Sure, you can do many prompts, and you can try to get somewhere with it, but it’s never going to be there.

What was interesting about that was that she did not want to be photographed. Despite the fact that we had the letterhead; The New Yorker magazine, thank you very much for accepting to do the portrait, etc., because she agreed to do it. We travelled from New York to India to do this. She didn’t want to do it. But we stuck it out.

Eventually, after two days of waiting, we were waiting outside, hoping that we could get it. We keep tapping on the door saying, please, do you think she has time now? We go back out in the sun, a hot day. There was a tree right behind us. I was with my editor. Her name was Sarah Giles, sadly passed away, we were with my assistant.

A monkey came down a tree and took $15,000 from her bag, went straight up a tree, back up again. We looked up, and it was laughing at us. Momentarily, when the editor realized that actually, a monkey just stole the total budget of our trip.

That was funny. But at that same time, we were allowed to go and shoot Mother Teresa. Maybe that was a fee. Maybe Mother Teresa sent a monkey there to steal the dollars. It could be funny.

But to be with her was something. I was really, really taken aback by that. To see somebody as old as her cleaning the floor, physically hard work. The few moments I had with her were definitely a different experience, a different level of energy. That was pretty special.

Of course, if I look at the picture now, it’s hanging on my wall. That’s Isabella Rossellini, that’s Sting, that’s Brad Pitt, that’s Crazy Horse, Gérard Depardieu, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Mick Jagger, Rudolf Nureyev, Amy Winehouse, Bruce Springsteen, that is Charlotte Rampling, that’s Iggy Pop, Anthony Bourdain, Linda Evangelista, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks, Keith Richards, Michael Douglas, Rod Stewart. An 8 by 10, black and white negative, double exposed. Baryshnikov, Fiona Apple, and this is  Mother Teresa. This is a platinum print. Just look at the life that she’s lived.

If I meet somebody her age, they’ve got plastic on their face all over the place. When they talk, nothing moves.

This is Avedon. Natasha Richardson, coming from a very legendary line of family of cinema, great actress.  Dumbledore and Baryshnikov’s dog. I think Mother Teresa would be the one.

You were one of the pioneers in bringing a raw, gritty aesthetic to high fashion photography in the 90s. What young photographers can learn from your experience?If a young photographer told you they want to “shoot like Max Vadukul,” what would you tell them to unlearn first?

Before that, this is how I started. This is the picture. This one shot is how I got started. When I saw this one frame, there’s only one frame like this. I was like, wow, this is everything. It’s got light, power, casting. It’s got architecture. It’s got movement. This picture was it. I built my career on this one picture.

Here I am working with Sting in Barbados.

What advice do I have for young photographers? Firstly, I don’t do advice. I am from the School of Life. The first thing you have to do before you can do any kind of relationship, you must have a relationship with yourself first. That sounds easy, but it’s not. It’s a very deep subject.

Without knowing who you are and having that relationship with yourself, you cannot have a relationship with anybody else. Once you know yourself, you don’t need advice from anybody. If you don’t know yourself, you’re going to be looking nonstop, lost in space.

Confront yourself. This is what it takes. People are scared to confront themselves. I’m not saying everybody, but those who know, they are people who really have understood who they are, and they have that relationship with themselves. That’s why they have successful marriages. That’s why they have successful relationships with other people, because they have conquered who they are first. Through that lens, you can go and do anything you want. Otherwise, you don’t know what you’re doing.

Firstly, don’t try to copy Max. Why would you want to copy me? Be yourself. Isn’t it enough?

How has social media changed the way people interact nowadays with photography, and what effect do you believe AI will have in photography?

The social media thing, it’s fine up to a point. The thing is, if somebody’s going to buy my print, they’re usually buying something because it’s authentic, right? It’s real. I was there. Even if it’s art directed, even if it’s set up a little bit, but the reality is still there.

I think the biggest danger isn’t so much the social media in the sense that it exists. But like they say, everybody’s got the right to have a pen, but nobody can really write like Oscar Wilde. It’s that thing. Everybody can have one. It’s the same level. Everybody thinks that they’re all photographers now or whatever.

Well, you might have millions of followers. It’s fine. But some of the most powerful people in the world have very few followers. As a matter of fact, they don’t really care.

I think that the real problem isn’t about that. It’s that photography is about having the ability to be present in the reality in front of you. That’s it. This kind of technology, which is very invasive, and which is controlled by a bunch of guys in Silicon Valley; let’s be clear, they can shut you down. They can block you. They can blackmail you, blacklist you because of your opinions. What’s that?

I think the last time I remember something like that happening was 1939. I mean, I wasn’t there, but the history is very clear. They’re doing it now.

I really feel like that’s the big danger about it. You get the false feeling that you are part of something free. It’s a democratic process. It’s not free. You are not able to do what you think you might be able to do in the situations that you see behind me, or let’s say what Moïs has done in his book here. Please look at his work. Because he’s amazing. When you see his work, you’ll understand.

There is a great danger that people are not able to understand what the meaning of photography is and the photography that is able to evoke memories. When you look at pictures of your grandparents or your parents when they were younger, I’m sure you feel something very different. You look at a static picture. It might even be small. It doesn’t have to be big or anything like this. But you’re dealing with the reality and also those pictures aren’t retouched. That’s what’s powerful.

With this stuff on the phone now, you can hit a button, it cleans up your face, it takes all the makeup off and God knows what else. Okay, it’s funny up to a point, but to me, it’s a horror house.

Photos courtesy of Max Vadukul

Dominique Musorrafiti

Ciao! My name is Dominique. I’m Italian and I’m proud to be a mix. My father was an Italian chemical engineer and high school teacher, with Greek and Polish heritage. My mother is Haitian, she was high school language teacher, with Dominican, Spanish, French, Portuguese, African and Native American heritage. Being a mix makes me appreciate to want to understand different cultures and lifestyles. I grew up in Italy, lived few years in Haiti, travel around main European capitals, lived many years in China, in Spain and UK. Traveling makes me feel that we can learn something from every situation in every part of the world.