Brooklyn-based photographer Henry Hargreaves is a master of still life photography. His Band Rider series — made in collaboration with Caitlin Levin — is one of my favourites. Using a Flemish painting style, these photos portrait the food and drink that many famous artists demand in their shows, from Beyoncé Knowles and Frank Sinatra to Britney Spears and Busta Rhymes. — J.
The rider is a series of requests a band or musician makes when playing a show. It typically outlines how they want their equipment to be set up and arranged through to how they want their dressing room organised and what food and drink they require. These requests range from the low maintenance to the outrageous. What attracted us to do this series was the way their requests manage to say something about the performers personality that words struggle to and how we can identify with them through food and drink.
The catering riders themselves can be pretty comprehensive. We initially thought I would try and shoot the whole list of items but quickly realised that this would become an exercise in spending money and waste. So we decided to edit down and focus on the quirky and unique requests and how some of these things may be juxtaposed.
Working closely with regular collaborator Caitlin levin we wanted to show these riders in a beautiful, noble and timeless way. The idea to show them in a Flemish Still Life manner was because we felt that there was a direct connection between the themes in the paining of time passing and mortality with the musician’s time in the fading limelight and the short span they would have to be able to make these demands and have them fulfilled.
‘Band Riders’ is a collaboration between Henry Hargreaves and Caitlin Levin. Typography by Lorenzo Fanton.
Henry Hargreaves was born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand. After some adventures, he became a full time still life and fashion photographer in New York, creating awesome images for major clients, like Ralph Lauren, GQ, V, New York Times, Vice, or in personal projects like his best-selling books 3DD — a 3D Celebration of Breasts, and photo series like No Seconds, Band Riders, Deep Fried Gadgets.