“It’s a book filled with passion, and the man behind the camera goes deep into the essence of the object… It all comes down to passion,” is what Michael Doster said about his photography book, Doster 80s/90s, when asked by Katinka Omir, filmmaker and his interviewer in the book (this interview is one to read, by the way), what he would tell her if she had no idea what it was about. I didn’t know what to expect either, as this, strangely enough (coming from someone who loves the fashion photography of the 80s and 90s more than any kind of fashion photography), was not even on my radar when my husband surprised me with it. The most pregnant impressions that the book left me were two: the incredible joy of life everybody seemed to feel (fashion does reflect society and the times we live) and the fact that the photographer does indeed seem to love his every subject.
The shoulders of the clothes may have been too big, the hair too “done”, the make-up too much, but the energy of the 80s was infectious, the models looked like women, not like anorexic under-age girls, fashion was about attitude just as much as it was about clothes, it was more about creativity and less about money, fashion photography was done on film and not rampantly digitalised and airbrushed and you could really see the clothes and what the image was all about. And here you have this beautiful book to tell the story, no words necessary.
“You are representing elegance, intelligence, charisma and beauty. I have a big problem when I look at today’s generation. They mostly dress alike, look alike, talk alike and behave alike. They are everything alike. Where is the individual identity?” Doster was telling Katinka Omir in their interview in 2008
“For me, photography is what your eye sees through the camera and the result.
With the digital photography, you shoot and then you can put anything you want into the picture or take anything out. This has nothing to do with what your eye originally saw. That’s the difference. And then, on top of that, there is post-production.”
photos by me from the book Doster: 80s/90s, published by Damiani
