From the 70s file: Stevie Nicks art directs herself. From the Guardian:

A collection of self-portrait Polaroids shot by Fleetwood Mac legend Stevie Nicks will go on display at a New York City gallery next month after languishing in a shoebox for decades.

“Some people don’t sleep at night. I’m one of those people,” Nicks said in a statement about the photographs. “I would begin after midnight and go until 4 or 5 in the morning. I stopped at sunrise, like a vampire. I never really thought anyone would ever see these pictures.”

The exhibit, 24 Karat Gold, curated by Eurythmics guitarist and Stevie Nicks collaborator Dave Stewart, accompanies a new album from Nicks, which will be released under the same title. The album, like the portraits, is a time capsule unearthed: the songs were written and demo-ed between 1969 and 1987, but re-recorded in recent months.

The Guardian spoke to Peter Blachley, owner of the Morrison Hotel Gallery, where the exhibit takes place next month, about the show.

[. . .]

She said that she took the pictures to “learn how to be a photographer”. To me, many of the images look very sophisticated, like the work of a pro. Is she just being modest?

I think she was really being her own muse in terms of how she wanted to see herself. She sort of opened up this wonderful treasure chest of clothing and furniture and accessories, and all the things that she would have had around her to create these little worlds of fashion, and how she saw herself.

From a photographic point of view, if you look at those Polaroids, at the photographs, of course this is before digital and today it’s a lot easier to take digital self-portraits because the cameras auto-focus, they auto-color, they do everything. Even those early Polaroid cameras that she was using with a cord – in the shot where she’s in the swimming pool you can see the cord in her hand as she’s clicking the shot – in every other shot she’s disguised it very well.

So I think even though she was learning and experimenting, she was very sophisticated in her knowledge of composition, her knowledge of framing, her knowledge of color. Because the shots are just beautifully art directed.

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