Anton Corbijn’s Photographic Style: Grain, Distance, Colour and Imperfection

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MODE UNKNOWN · ANTON CORBIJN · Chapter 10 of 20

The familiar shorthand is grainy black and white. It identifies something real, but it cannot explain the work by itself. A more useful account separates material appearance from composition, and composition from the relationship between photographer and subject.

Grain is a surface, not an explanation

Visible grain makes an image’s material construction apparent. Instead of offering an entirely smooth window onto a person, the photograph asks us to see texture as well as subject. That texture can make light feel dense and a surface feel unstable.

But grain does not automatically produce intimacy, truth or seriousness. Those qualities depend on the image as a whole. A heavily textured photograph can still be empty; a precise one can be emotionally complex. The important question is what the surface contributes to this particular picture.

Corbijn has spoken about imperfection as being closer to life than perfection, and about his interest in artists rather than celebrity as an end in itself. (TIME) These statements are useful evidence of an attitude. They should not become a claim that every technically imperfect photograph is somehow more honest.

Distance and withheld information

A face does not have to fill the frame to command attention. Distance can make a setting significant; a turned head can make the viewer conscious of their wish to see more. Cropping can intensify a gesture or interrupt a comfortable reading of the body.

When looking at a portrait, ask where your eye first lands. Then ask what prevents it from settling. Is the person centred but partly obscured? Is the background pulling your attention away? Does the pose suggest movement beyond the frame? These tensions can be more revealing than the image’s overall darkness.

Limitations as a working method

In his Louisiana interview, Corbijn discusses restricted equipment and the inventiveness that can follow from fewer choices. (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art) That is a practical principle rather than a retro preference. A limited setup reduces the time spent choosing among tools and increases the pressure to solve the picture through position, timing and attention.

For readers interested in making photographs, the productive lesson is to identify a question before choosing an effect. What relationship do you want between subject and setting? What would change if you stood farther away? What is the subject doing that you would lose by directing them too heavily?

Colour belongs in the story

The museum account of Hollands Deep traces changes beyond the earlier monochrome work, including lith prints from 1989 and the later conceptual series 33 Still Lives. (Kunstmuseum Den Haag) Corbijn’s career therefore cannot be divided into serious black-and-white photography on one side and irrelevant colour experiments on the other.

Colour can be descriptive, symbolic or deliberately unnatural. When it stops looking ordinary, it makes the photograph’s construction difficult to ignore. The viewer may become uncertain whether the image is a portrait, a film memory, a poster or something staged to resemble one of those forms.

What influence can and cannot mean

Museum Cobra identifies documentary photographers Ed van der Elsken, Robert Frank and Koen Wessing among Corbijn’s inspirations. (Museum Cobra) That documented connection is more useful than attributing every dramatic shadow to an assumed painter or film director.

Visual resemblance alone does not establish influence. Two artists can reach related forms through different paths. A responsible account separates a maker’s stated references, a curator’s argument and the critic’s own comparison. The comparison may still be illuminating, but its status should remain clear.

Beyond imitation

The weakest response to a distinctive photographer is to copy the most obvious effect. The stronger response is to study the decisions: how much to show, where to stand, when to stop directing, and how an image changes across a sequence. Those questions remain useful even when the resulting photograph looks nothing like Corbijn’s.

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