The Other Side of the Lens – Henry Hargreaves
After backpacking through Southeast Asia and strutting the catwalks of Paris and Milan, Henry Hargreaves found his bliss as a photographer in the Big Apple.
The Dunkin’ Donuts box sits open, half-eaten remnants oozing jam or casting sprinkles across the sidewalk and a fire hydrant that squats by a vibrantly graffitied wall. Spilled scoops of melting ice cream create a rainbow Slinky down a New York City stoop. A bag of tortilla chips is strewn by a wire-fenced park and water fountain, forming a gold and purple spiral, almost koru-like. Trash in the city – turned into something eye-catching and beautiful. Captured by the lens of Henry Hargreaves, a Cantabrian who travelled the world before making his home in Brooklyn and circling back to a teenage passion.
‘When I was in sixth form they offered photography at Christ’s College, and I loved the way you could have an idea and make it happen relatively immediately,’ says Henry. ‘I could take pictures, run to the lab, develop the film, and bring it to life – unlike painting or drawing where I’d have a vision in my head then put pen to paper and be like, oh, this is shit.’
While Henry, now 43, loves life as an artistic photographer with a young family in ‘the city that never sleeps’ – a place he describes as unexpectedly positive, where people take you as you are and are keen to collaborate – his road was winding on the way.
‘Growing up I’d never seen anyone with a photography career, other than the guy who took school portraits. A creative photographer was your art teacher who took pictures on the side.’ After failing to get into a visual communications course at Polytech – he chuckles at the memory, given a few years ago he was asked to guest lecture at the same course – he did a BA in film and American studies, then went backpacking around Asia.
Unexpectedly, he ended up on the other side of the lens. Thousands of them. ‘I got hit up to do some modelling, and when I was on fashion shoots I thought, “I want to be the guy who’s calling the shots and bringing their idea to life.” It was just a matter of trying to bring that dream to reality, so when I was on a contract in Japan I bought my first medium-format camera, and we’d go into these crazy areas of Japan and start taking photos.’
‘Some modelling’ is perhaps underselling it. A few months after heading on his OE, he was strutting the catwalks at fashion shows for some of the world’s most iconic brands; Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada. He did countless high fashion shoots, and for a time was ranked the world’s number one male model. ‘I had long hair, a long nose, an androgynous look,’ he says, downplaying things. ‘I was a skinny white dude, once upon a time when that was trendy.’
In his first few months of modelling, Henry was sent to Milan Fashion Week, booked Prada and other campaigns around the world, and walked at New York Fashion Week. It was September 2001.
Henry recalls being in New York the day two hijacked airliners crashed into the Twin Towers. ‘I’d been to the World Trade Center a few days before, and I remember it was $25 to go up to the observation deck, and I was like, I’ll wait for another day, that’s too rich for my blood right now. We did the Marc Jacobs show the night before, and I had Hugo Boss and a few others booked. The shows paid well and I was still living hand to mouth, so at first I was like, why are you cancelling Fashion Week? JFK got closed, you didn’t really know what was going on. I was pretty fresh out of New Zealand and naïve to things.’
He modelled a few more years, then moved to New York full-time once he secured a visa, working as a bartender, an echo of his uni days serving at Lone Star in Ōtautahi Christchurch. In New York he earned a few hundred dollars a night in tips while working (and partying) late, and realised he couldn’t make a proper go of photography unless things changed. So, he quit, giving himself six months to ‘either be a photographer or burst that bubble and sell my gear and look at getting a career in the restaurant world as a partner or manager’.
The gamble worked. Establishing himself as a professional photographer, and in the years since, he’s dabbled in fashion photography, fine art, commercial photography (which he loves), and become well known for his highly creative storytelling using food.
‘Initially, because I’d been working in fashion, I tried to shoot fashion,’ he says. ‘Everyone wants to shoot fashion, because it’s the most glamorous and the perception is it’s highly paid. But the reality is it’s kind of a pain in the ass, because you need a model, stylists, all the right clothes, all this production behind it. It’s really hard to shoot on a whim.’
Having worked in hospitality, he began getting jobs shooting food for restaurant websites. ‘No one asked you to shoot food for free, they were all paying, and I didn’t have to worry about all these other people. It was just me problem-solving with food.’
The more he did food photography, the more Henry realised you could do so much more with it than merely making food look delicious and appetising for customers. ‘Food is this great common denominator. I started thinking, let’s use food to tell stories, like a sort of sociological thing, to connect you with other people. I started doing food-based projects and they started going viral, and that’s sort of what led me into this art food world.’
Ten years ago, he created No Seconds, a series of photos sharing stories of executed prisoners through recreations of the last meals they chose. Pop star Katy Perry bought a print of Hargreaves’ image of a single olive, symbolising Victor Feguer who was hanged in 1963.
Other projects have artfully shaped fungi into mushroom clouds, evoking the nuclear threat; showcased Donald Trump quotes alongside brittle, hollow fortune cookies; revisited Bond novels via lavish meals the spy ate at key moments; or colourfully celebrated birthdays with classic Australian Women’s Weekly cakes, for children’s names banned in Aotearoa New Zealand.
His recent project made in collaboration with food stylist Charlotte Omnès reimagines fast food waste into environmental art, swapping sad mess into something organised and calm. ‘I love being able to explore my ideas through photography,’ he explains. ‘It’s kind of like I can use it as my own type of therapy, to help my understanding of the world.’
