How do you capture the essence of real people and what they are wearing?

AW: The easy way to approach a project is to look at the title of the project and then put your name first - not for ego but it places you in that environment. So Albert Watson in Rome rather than Rome by Albert Watson. When William Klein shot Rome in 1957 - loads of Italians wearing Italian clothes. You will see a guy in an Italian suit with a big tie. A lot of women wearing black gathering water - another photo Klein captured. There were tons of his pictures that featured Italian fashion. He photographed kids playing soccer, wearing Italian clothes. But now, I take a photograph of people in Roma and all of the young people on the streets are wearing GAP, American streetwear, baseball caps, Nike sneakers etc. So when you begin to photograph them, it looks like I shot this in Times Square. I couldn’t get an essence of fashion from Italy - it was all global. I had a photograph of high school kids in 1988 - now, all the kids in the playground look the same as they did 30 years ago. Basically, the fashion industry has not moved on. Music has not moved on. Only technology has moved on.

You spent a long time in Morocco - please describe what life was like for you?

AW: I’m still there in Morocco - I haven’t left. The way that it happened, I had gone to Morocco three or four times. First time in late ’70s for French Vogue, I shot there and then left. In 1993, German Vogue contacted me and asked me to shoot in Morocco for two weeks for two issues - then they said, one thing is we want everyone to stay in a big house. Not The Palmery in Marrakech. When you are directing people all day - it’s nice for the group to get a break from me (the person directing them all day long). But me and the entire crew, including models, stayed together in a house and that meant breakfast, lunch and dinner together. Eventually the Editor-in-Chief begged me to do it. It was a lucky thing actually. Then Franca Sozzani called me from Italian Vogue saying if she sent me a suitcase, could I shoot for her too while I’m there. I ended up doing multiple shoots. [All within this fortnight…] the  jobs escalated. All being shot in Morocco. It was a big success and I stayed there for several weeks. Years later, me and my family booked that same house three years in a row for our holidays. Then between 1996-98 me and my wife bought a house in the Palmery in Marrakech. We later sold it and moved to the coast.

How did the visual aesthetics of Morocco inform your photography?

AW: It’s a great place to work. I got a commission from the King of Morocco to do a book on the country. He said do whatever you like as long as it's shot in Morocco. I did the book and designed it - I got a very good typographer to do the type. It was another love affair with this country. I used ten-color press - that enables you to do more colors, black and white on four plates. That means the black area of the images come out very strong - the quality of the printing is very unique.

‍Where is the most enchanting place to visit in Morocco?

AW: Winter time - Marrakech. Now, it’s more globalized than it used to be. I remember it from forty years ago. I would not go in summer time - it’s quite simply too hot.

Out of all the music videos you have directed, which one are you most proud of and why?

AW: I have done 400-plus TV commercials which are more challenging. I enjoyed them more than music videos. The music video (14 all together) have no sound direction so you simply play the backtrack and never needed to say to a singer to hit the note. You are purely directing the visuals and that helps, no question, if you are a photographer. To answer your question, all of the Sade videos for Love Deluxe. She was just so fabulous.

Your portrait of Sade for the Love Deluxe album cover is now in the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It is one of the most profoundly stunning portraits. How did the concept for this image come about?

AW: What happened was that I had an idea that I went to her with. I was doing a lot of pictures with her and we were getting near the end of the shoot. I said, “I want to do a shot of you nude but without seeing anything, you are covering your breast etc.” I wanted to treat the skin with a metallic makeup and shoot it in black and white and then in the printing emphasize, not a sepia because it’s too ginger, but put some color back into it because it’s a black and white print. Sade answered, “You know me, I don’t like to portray myself as sexy. I don’t like the idea of sexy.” Sade always wore a lot of Indian saria-type clothes. She didn’t like to be sexy. So I told her,“If I do it classically then it won’t look vulgar. And what do you care anyway? If you don’t like it, throw it in the bin! You are the client.

She thought about it. And then we did it. I photographed a real nude of her. The metallic coating on her skin plays into the idea of deluxe gold. She looked at the photographs and said, “Well, it is beautiful but no way that is the cover.” Then she went into the makeup room. Her team then came straight to me and said that it would be the cover and they would convince her. “Do not lose these two rolls of film that you got,” was the next thing they said to me. It became the album cover for Love Deluxe. 

What question have you never been asked but would like to answer?

AW: The artistic thing. I am always trying to make things artistic. I am trying to produce art so I’d like to be asked more questions about art in photography. The position of art in photography and where it’s going now with AI. What is the position of photography in art? I was at MOMA a couple of days ago and it was interesting that now in the main collection there is a lot of photography that has entered the main part of the collection, that is something that has changed.

Perhaps we should interview Albert Watson again and ask this very question? Podcast, anyone? This interview process was unforgettable; just like Watson's photographs and the man himself.

Written by Philippa Morgan - a real human editor, not an AI-plagiarist bot.

READ Albert Watson’s Take Ten Qs Answers Here