Tim Walker (@timwalker)

This photo was done as a light test with me wanting to know what Cate would experience wearing the perspex bubble. It was echoey and made one deaf. I always do what I want my subjects to do prior to getting them to do it to understand the obstacles they might have to endure while being photographed. Magazine: W Magazine  @wmag Editor: Stefano Tonchi  @stefanotonchi Sittings Editor: Lynn Hirschberg Styling: Jacob K  @kjeldgaard1 Hair: Julien d’Ys  @juliendys Make Up: Val Garland  @thevalgarland Set Design: Shona Heath  @shona.heath 1. Self-portrait in bubble. Paris, 2015 2. Cate Blanchett in bubble with chaffinch. Paris, 2015

The great actors of our time are the closest thing we have to living time travellers. One year they’re knee deep in the Elizabethan court, the next Versailles a hundred and fifty years later, then they jump into an imagined future of a possible life on mars. In fact this image was borne from a newspaper clipping in my scrapbook declaring “snow found on mars”. Just imagine… Shona used flour as moon dust or mars dust… it gave the studio a homely aroma (I grew up with my mum making bread). While I was trying to believe I was skiing on mars, the smell of the flour took me home. Magazine: W Magazine  @wmag Editor: Stefano Tonchi  @stefanotonchi Sittings Editor: Lynn Hirschberg Styling: Jacob K  @kjeldgaard1 Hair: Julien d’Ys  @juliendys Make Up: Val Garland  @thevalgarland Set Design: Shona Heath  @shona.heath 1. Cate Blanchett skiing on the moon. Fashion: Come Des Garçons & Julien d’Ys. Paris, 2015 2. Unpublished polaroids 3. Unpublished behind the scenes scrapbook

It was probably my love of Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of the queen in the film Elizabeth (1998) that made me want to play or riff on history for this series of pictures. The camera is a machine that stops time and because of that I have always loved the notion of time travel, or a character who has the ability to travel through time. Walking around London, I regularly contemplate the layers of history I am walking on… mysterious connections to the past that we’re innately born with, reincarnation and so forth as inspiration. 1. Cate Blanchett in bubble. Paris, 2015 2. Cate Blanchett, W Magazine, December 2015 Cover 3. Cover image without text 4. Unpublished alternative to cover image, Cate Blanchett, Paris, 2015 Magazine: W Magazine @wmag Editor: Stefano Tonchi @stefanotonchi Sittings Editor: Lynn Hirschberg Styling: Jacob K @kjeldgaard1 Hair: Julien d’Ys @juliendys Make Up: Val Garland @thevalgarland Set Design: Shona Heath @shona.heath

Professor Minoru Asada, director of the Symbiotic Intelligent Systems Research Center at Osaka University, poses here with his robot child known as CB2. A lighter energy permeated Professor Asada’s workspace and person. At the time I was moved by the tenderness displayed by the scientist (Gepetto) towards his child robot (Pinocchio). As technology moves so, so quickly, I shudder to think at what I’d find in the Osaka laboratory pandora’s box today. I do wonder if we are going full speed towards an AI future that we won’t be able to contain. It scares me. I saw the future in Osaka… I don’t think think I’m so keen to go there.  1. Minoru Asada and CB2, Osaka, 2016 2-3. Unpublished portraits. CB2, Osaka, 2016 4. Magazine clipping of CB2 5-6 Unpublished polaroids of Minoru Asada and CB2, Osaka, 2016 Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

In 2015, a flurry of news imagery filtered into the UK press reporting on the state of Japanese intelligent robotic development. I was as bewitched as I was startled by the uncanny valley of it all. Scientist Hiroshi Ishiguro had made his own eerie robotic likeness. We travelled to Osaka to meet Ishiguro who had become something of a celebrity along with his robot twin. The day interacting with humanoid robots made me feel deeply uncomfortable — as we walked down the corridors of the intelligent robotics lab at the graduate school of engineering science at Osaka University, there was a room we weren’t allowed to enter — within it frozen human shapes draped in white sheets stood or sat spookily still. “The future! As yet unrevealed” said Ishiguro. Now revealed, and known as A.I, the future has arrived. But be warned — last month an A.I. model did something that the Wall Street Journal said “no machine was ever supposed to do”— it rewrote its own code to avoid being shut down.  1. Hiroshi Ishiguro and Geminoid HI-4, Osaka, 2016 2. Unpublished contact sheets 3. Newspaper clipping Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

As has been said before, Japan is ancient and modern at the same time. Many a science fiction character’s costume has been borne from the history of Japanese geisha attire. I wanted the clothes, the hair, and the make up to look futuristic and so conceptualised a world of holes… I loved this set so much but sadly didn’t get too long in the gouda world because the models heads were in agony in their traditional wigs.  1. Geishas with Noh mask, Tokyo, 2016 2. Unpublished preliminary sketch, 2016 3-4. Unpublished Geishas, Tokyo, 2016 Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

One of the things I love about fashion photography is the semiotics of it all. What things reminds us of or how we interpret them. Playful abstract thinking. Working with these Japanese puppets and Kate’s styling, I was reminded of the scene in Star Wars (1977) when R2D2 projects a tiny Princess Leia to Obi-Wan Kenobi asking for help. 1-2. Rianne Von Rompaey with Bunraku, Tokyo, 2016 3. Bunraku, Tokyo, 2016 4. Unpublished polaroid, Bunraku, Tokyo, 2016 5. Clip from Star Wars (1977) Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

We went to the coast and Kate Phelan, the stylist, put Rianne in a brilliantly strange JW Anderson suit that looked like future tennis whites. “You’re the ball girl at Wimbledon 2042 Rianne” I said, throwing an imaginary ball. She gestured to catch it for the polaroid (see slide 2). I’d mistakenly loaded some ancient Black and White polaroid film into the 600SE camera (otherwise known as THE GOOSE) and on pulling the polaroid I loved JW’s future kit depicted in milky B&W. But as with all polaroids one falls in love with — you then have to capture the same thing on film. "Easy" said Rianne looking at the polaroid, “throw me the ball again”.  1. Rianne van Rompaey, Fashion: JW Anderson, Japan, 2016 2. Unpublished polaroid. Rianne van Rompaey, Fashion: JW Anderson, Japan, 2016 Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

Richard Avedon’s 1966 American Vogue photo essay ‘The Great Fur Caravan’ with Veruschka is one of my most favourite editorial stories ever — its a perfect post card sent back from a far away place with far away people — celebrating the ravishing beauty of Japan. Diana Vreeland, who commissioned Avedon to do the shoot, always famously said “the eye has to travel”. The model in this photograph is Rianne van Rompaey. She hadn’t been modelling very long at the time we all went to Japan. Talk about being thrown in the deep end. Zen gardens were her stage and perilous unicopters, hissing Butoh dancers, and robots her fellow performers. The incongruity of a young dutch girl posing in a Japanese garden was something of a discomfort I had in my head at the time. When is it a cultural celebration and when is it cultural appropriation? Looking back at this series I think the question I had in my head then is answered now by the fact I’d want to photograph a Japanese girl in the garden. Aligning beauty with authenticity. Despite that lesson learnt, Rianne’s ability to belong in these photographs is unquestionable. She is a master class in elegance, curiosity and restraint. She was fascinated by everything we came across and befriended everyone. This photo of her Balenciaga candy caned long legs is one of my favourite fashion pictures I’ve taken… look at the candy striped carp she attracted in the bottom right of the picture.  1. Rianne van Rompaey, Fashion: Balenciaga, Yamgaguchi House, Nagano Japan, 2016 2. Richard Avedon’s photo essay ‘The Great Fur Caravan’, American Vogue, October, 1966 3. Clip from 2012 documentary ‘Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel’ 4-8. Richard Avedon’s photo essay ‘The Great Fur Caravan’, American Vogue, October, 1966 Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

By the time I got to Japan, Kazuo Ohno, Butoh’s founder, had long passed. However, his son Yoshito Ohno was still alive living and performing in Japan. We visited him at home, his wife did his make up and we had an unforgettable performance in his sitting room. I love the aspect of the Butoh that questions gender. I see societal norms in Japan as being rather rigid. Butoh questions these. In the last slide, Yoshito becomes a rabbit — “What is the red ribbon you’re wearing?” — “The blood pouring from the bullet hole that shot the bunny”.  1. Yoshito Ohno, ‘Admiring La Argentina’. Tokyo, 2016 2. Unpublished polaroid of Yoshito Ohno, ‘Admiring La Argentina’. Tokyo, 2016 3. Yoshito Ohno’s wife doing his makeup. Tokyo, 2016 4. Yoshito Ohno gesturing the hand puppet of his father, Kazuo Ohno. Tokyo, 2016 5-6. Yoshito Ohno as rabbit. Tokyo, 2016 7. BTS footage of Yoshito Ohno dancing. Tokyo, 2016 Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

Butoh, a unique form of Japanese dance theatre, was founded post World War Two by Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata as a reaction to the horrors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The practice was initially called Ankoku Butoh — “the dance of darkness” and reflected the more grotesque aspects of the human psyche. As a young man I’d seen Butoh performed at the barbican and I’ve never forgotten it. The distorted golum like postures burnt into my memory. When I went to Japan, I was dead set on creating a collaboration with Butoh. When the dancers you see here moved, they hissed like snakes ready to strike.  1. Rianne Van Rompaey with performance by Butoh/Kumotaro Mukai. Fashion: Constance Blackaller. Tokyo, 2016 2-6. Unpublished polaroids of Rianne van Rompaey with performance by Butoh/Kumotaro Mukai 7. Unpublished pictures of Butoh/Kumotaro Mukai. Tokyo, 2016 Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject

Sometimes a reportage photograph that I see in the newspaper grabs my attention so extremely it sends my imagination into a frenzy… A family in Nagano, Japan had invented a mini unicopter. The stuff of dreams… The news report showed a rather inscrutable geisha hovering in her very own unicopter in a Japanese blossom orchard. Back in London I researched the company who’d invented this marvellous flying machine and contacted them to ask if I could come there and photograph. This was the beginning of my research into a large photo essay in Japan commissioned by then editor Alexandra Shulman for British Vogue in 2016.  1. Mari Hirao and Yui Yamamoto operating Gen h–4 flying machines, Nagano, Japan, 2016 2. Unpublished preliminary sketches 3. Unpublished polaroid tests with my then photo assistant Sarah Lloyd 4. Unpublished polaroid tests with model Rianne Van Rompaey 5-7. BTS pictures of our crew including Rianne, Sam Bryant and my then assistants Sarah Lloyd and Tony Ivanov with the deer. Magazine: @britishvogue Editor: Alexandra Shulman @alexandrashulman Styling: Kate Phelan @kphelan123 Hair: Shon @shonju Make Up: Sam Bryant @sambryantmakeup Production: Jeff Delich @delichproject