In Conversation With: Christopher Smith: b. 1994, South Africa

GHK: So were you quite removed from the broader art context when you started out?

CS: I would say I was completely distant. I’ve been making these images since high school, but it was only in 2016 that I decided to share them on Instagram. What’s the point in doing this if no one sees it, I thought. At that time I was focused fully on the fashion world, because that’s my number one obsession; I didn’t even conceive of myself as an artist, I purely saw myself as a fashion photographer, which I still am to a certain extent. I wanted fashion people to see it, I wondered what they might think, whether they would be interested, if I was even good? I had no conception of whether what I was doing was interesting, valid or anything like that!

GHK: So this was all coming to life in high school?

CS: Yes! It started in high school, just with a cell phone. And that’s what opened my eyes to photography and its power to transform – and to transform people’s perceptions of you. Then I realised – because it started really just with phone selfies – that it was also interesting to focus on light, styling, poses and I was like: ‘oh ok, this is a little more than just selfies.' I then got a camera and started learning a little bit more technique, taking it a bit more seriously. 

GHK: And your experiments with performing these different characters were all playing out in your childhood bedroom?

CS: Yes – and I’m still right here, right now! Initially I wasn’t interested in being an artist, I just really liked doing: putting up sheets as a backdrop, borrowing clothes from my sister’s wardrobe to dress up in, creating. Everything was inspired by fashion photography, because that was then the most accessible form of imagery to me. So I really liked doing that – all in my childhood bedroom. It was a place I could use to learn technique. A lot of the early pictures weren’t conceptual, they were more like experiments with technique: if I were to stand here, what would the light be like? If I put this on my head, or if I put the camera down here, what happens? So it was only around 2015, before I got Instagram, that I felt like I finally had something to say. 

GHK: And what was the outlet for those initial images if you weren’t yet using social media?

CS: I was making them mostly for myself. I would also put them as profile pictures on – back in those days – BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), which is a dated reference.

GHK: Those were the days!

CS: Yes! And then of course friends would see them and react to them there, but it was nothing I would share widely, it was just my own thing.

GHK: Were you studying art in school?

CS: No, none at all. The books I have here tell the story; I was looking at these images and seeing what I could learn, but it was equally about my love of just setting things up, making, experimenting. I feel like this all goes back to me liking movies as a kid, or imagining the behind-the-scenes of my favourite films. Now I look back, I realise what I loved about the image-making process was the creation of an illusion, which for me is quite easy to do – unlike with a movie! After high school, I did go on to study graphic design at university – and that had a major impact on the development of my creative practice, on my understanding of visual communications in general, but the photography was all self-taught.

GHK: I’ve seen, in other interviews, that you’ve referred to yourself as a bit anonymous in school! Did you really have none of the theatricality that we see in your pictures?

CS: No! This was my outlet. I use the term ‘plain Jane.’ I’m joking of course, but I was just normal, average. Photography became my way of seeing myself in different ways. I realised I could be sexy, scary, all these different things. That’s what really made me fall in love with the medium. And it makes sense that fashion photography would be such an influence, because it has the same kind of impulse to transform everything: hair, makeup, backdrops, clothes, gesture, pose, all those things, everything!

GHK: Was working in the childhood bedroom – this place where identities are often discovered, negotiated, performed – a solitary pursuit? You mentioned borrowing your sister’s clothes?

CS: Most of it was in isolation, but everyone around me, my family, were always very supportive of everything I was doing. It was more a case of them lending me stuff rather than actively pitching in. I would go to my room and set up a sheet – in the early days it was lots of sheets, where nowadays I use paper – then prep the camera, grab some scraps to shoot with from around the house. I’m still mostly working at home, just because I feel like I’m too self-conscious to be going out in public in all these looks! I have this aspiration to go to the woods somewhere and make a series of nudes or something…but to do that alone would be so hard. There’s so many factors I’d have to contend with if I were to go beyond my space: it’s the weather, the hair, the makeup. It would be a lot.

GHK: You mentioned this ambition to train the lens on someone else: I guess one of the difficulties with that is that you’re currently wearing lots of hats: you’re the stylist, the makeup artist, the model, the photographer, the set designer, the hair stylist…but on a bigger production, how do you place yourself among that cast?

CS: Exactly! And how much do you give up in doing that? That’s always the thing. I really am collaborative, but I’m also very specific about the things that inspire me. Some things just don’t click for me. It’s all about finding the right kind of subject I would say. I’m so uninhibited, and that’s what works in the pictures – obviously it’s my lens so I’m free to do whatever I want – but working with someone else, I need them to have that same kind of energy.

GHK: On that note, who are your clients?

CS: A few years back I did a shoot for AnOther Man; they wanted a Tom Ford Beauty story so they sent me some sunglasses and some makeup to create with…the broader theme of the issue was around horror. I ended up doing something inspired by The Invisible Man, which I look back on now and think: ‘wow, that’s crazy I was able to do that!’ It’s a weird reference that you wouldn’t think would fit within fashion, but it made sense for that particular issue. I’ve also done some stuff for Acne Studios: for Acne Paper I did these 8 images that each reinvented one of the magazine’s previous covers, and for the brand itself I shot a series for the 2022 men’s fall/winter collection. I loved it! I had so much freedom! They sent me the whole look book and really allowed me to dictate the kind of images I wanted to create. More recently, I was honoured to shoot the cover for the 15th anniversary issue of Luis Venegas’ Candy Magazine.

GHK: And to go a little deeper into your work and the images themselves, would you say that your self-portraits are principally about developing characters and the worlds you imagine they might inhabit?

CS: Yes…but a lot of it’s intuitive. If people would see some of the references I’ve used for certain images, I’m not sure they would necessarily see the connections. Sometimes it’s obvious and I’m trying to evoke something very specific. Other times I see something and it’s more about an aspect of a picture or an artwork that I’m taking somewhere, so the final product ends up being something very different from the source. When it comes to performing the characters, often – when I put on an outfit – I can start to feel if this person would be stood a certain way, the kind of attitude they would evoke, so a lot of it’s instinctual. Other times the characters are derived from a fixed reference I have in mind. That’s all in my head and probably not precise at all, but it means that the final image will always be very much filtered through my mind. 

GHK: And where do these references come from?

CS: I spend my days – and I’m not joking – constantly on my laptop: I’m always online! Most of my ideas, my characters, come from that research. But I’m also looking at books, old photographs on eBay, images from adverts and things like that. Then there’s all the photography books I have. Sometimes I think I have too many books, but if you flip through them you will always encounter something new. For me, when it comes to ideas and inspirations, I’ll often see something for the first time and think of it as super interesting, then completely forget about, then come back to it in couple of years time and say ‘now’s the time!’

GHK: Do you find inspiration in people at all?

CS: No, not really. There’s not enough fantasy in real life! Most people’s lives, and mine too, are a little bit plain – so it’s about escaping that. When I’m looking at painting from the 1600s or photography from the 30s or 60s, I’m imagining all these exciting things. I can be inspired by speaking to people about my work, though; sometimes people have the most crazy interpretations of my images or an idea I have, and sometimes that can spark something.

GHK: And where do you find the materials, the props, the costumes that make their way into your images?

CS: The majority are found locally: I go around town, I try to find low cost clothing shops, sometimes second hand shops. One of the things that always inspires me are mannequins in shop windows. Sometimes you find an outfit and you think: ‘I know exactly who would wear that! I know exactly what image I could create with that.’ When it comes to these kind of things, party shops are great – where they sell halloween decor and stuff like that. It’s rare, though, that I ever get something to use in a picture and keep it as is; I know how to style it with various things to elevate it beyond what it actually is. And that’s another restriction! It’s fun because it’s a question of how I can make something cheap look like a designer outfit, or how I can use a new object to evoke something from the past.