In reply to Berti:

I still love documentary or street style of still photography, they have so much textures and even more interesting with top models in them because in that style of photography they are often shown with bags under their eyes and wrinkles and less retouched, and I find that very attractive in fashion photographs. I think still photography would always have a place in fashion they have more outlet now with internet. Moving images to me is another medium, completely different from still photography. It's not fair to compare them, just as not fair to compare fashion photographs shot in documentary style with minimal retouching vs. fashion images that have been hugely retouched-they to me are not the same medium. I don't think it's down to only technology and access, not anyone given a digital camera or moving camera could capture compelling and images that could move people. But I think we would see more the two schools of photographers, one that tries to stay minimal with retouching, and really tries to capture the image at the photo shoot, vs. anther school of photographers who embrace the retouching technology, retouching is part of creating the final image, or is just as important if not more so than the skills in photography.

In reply to Berti:

i find it slightly insulting to people like Penn and Avedon, and indeed Nick, that you would inferr that talent and success are all about access to cash and subjects. If that is true, why isn't Lindsay Lohan photographing for the cover of every issue of Vogue known to man? Access comes with success, sure, but it only allows an already gifted artist to express their work better. A bad workman blames his tools - equally you shouldn't deprecate a good workman aw implying superior tools are the source of his success. Seems a bit of a pointless argument to try and make, to me at least.

In reply to Berti:

Wow! There are a lot of answers needed here.
Lets start of with getting the premise of the question right; I don't think that photography is dead, there are many many brilliant, life changing,amazing and iconic photographs still to be taken and furthermore I would still love to try and take some (or even one) of them!
The reality of the situation is that there is a generation of image makers now who do not look at magazines at all. My children ( who are in their teens ) get all their visual information from the internet and yet they live in an environment that is rich in magazines as I get magazines sent to me a lot, but they just do not look at them.That is the truth and however we might romantically yearn for it to be different (I don't incidentally) that is how it is.
Theatre did not die when cinema stated and radio did not die when television started.
Photography will not die because of the internet, but the possibilities opened up by the web are just vast compared to print; being able to add sound to an image, being in touch with your audience, being able to create films on your phone, no problems with space and no limitations on time.Most importantly that you can publish/broadcast your work( image, film, story, song....) without someone else having to decide whether they can make money from it, all makes this new medium so much more exciting than publishing a set of still photographs in a magazine that has a tiny circulation and no tangible contact with the audience.
Fashion film is in its infancy, imagine where fashion photography was 10 years into its life, they were still hand painting Daguerreotypes, Avedon and Penn were not even specks on the horizon at that point ! However Fashion Film is a new genre and is now recognized as that.It has come about artistically through a small group of individuals being excited to create a different way to communicate fashion as there is now a medium that allows it.It is only in the last year or so that business has realized its potential and now I think we will see a very accelerated growth in its' development.
Fashion designers create clothes to be seen in movement, so any still representation of their clothes is a compromise of their original vision.
We are learning how to make this new genre work and there is a lot to learn .
Fashion film does not have need of a narrative, it relies just like fashion photography did on the relationship , understanding and I would argue love the film maker has with fashion, its designers , its models.
The huge challenge for me to make a great piece of Fashion film is so exciting and I feel there is so much to try , learn , discover that it is totally unsurprising that I am drawn to it. There are still challenges in photography too ,I really do not feel I have achieved what i want to yet by any means . Lets not even mention Fashion Sculpture.
Finally , and I am sorry if this is a rambling answer to your questions, no its has no more to do with technology than which pen a writer uses has got to do with how memorable the story they write is.
It has everything to do with desire and excitement and wanting to feel alive.
best wishes,
Nick

In reply to nick knight:

" Fashion designers create clothes to be seen in movement, so any still representation of their clothes is a compromise of their original vision. "

A " still representation " is in a way a frozen, minimal fraction of the designer's vision ... but the moving image takes that VISION a long way further by engaging the senses ... in a stimulating emotional journey about the product ....

I like to supposse that if I were allowed to answer BERTI"s chief question about his curiosity on what makes it different to the rest then I would like to take the liberty and add :

IT IS .... VISION, CURIOSITY, UNDERSTANDING OF THE DYNAMICS AND THAT VERY PERSONAL CREATIVE SENSE OF TRYING TO PUSH THE BOUNDARIES FURTHER IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE STIMULATING AND INSPIRING RESULTS WHEN IT COMES TO EXPLORING THE RICH, SENSATIONAL, COLOURFUL, HIGLY IMAGINATIVE AND RESOURCEFUL DREAM WORLD OF FASHION!

In reply to Berti:

Sorry for coming back to this so late but thank you all for all the comments.

For the record, I would be the very last person to insult Nick Knight/Avedon/Penn. They are (some of) my heroes. And yes of course I know that "access" is not the key to genius, though in many cases it can lift you above plenty of people who carry true gifts. Such is life and good luck to all those who use it to their advantage.

My op was tongue in cheek I grant, but it did raise a serious point. Are moving images (cinema or internet etc) of the same long term lasting value as still? And does the fact that moving images are becoming the mass movement (see the vids by Bill Franks and Vincent le Foret for examples of how it can be done in a DSLR) spell the death of still photography? My answer - as you'll gather from my op - is an emphatic "NO!".

Note I don't say artistic value. But the fashion still image for me has lost its way in artistic terms, purely because everything that can be done has been done (as was the case soon after photography was invented). Bourdin's pictures will always mean so much more to me than the last porn movie I saw...

So Nick I do understand why you want to move on and I applaud you for doing so. Also that you think that fashion can be best served through the innovative (an overused term these days) use of the moving image. I also take your point about the internet. OK we can get into another discussion here - art is about money and appealing to your audience (sex?) - probably Botticelli himself could have got involved in that one...

However (I love "howevers" don't you?) is there anyone out there that will agree with me that Dovima and those Elephants is so much better as a still than in the movies? There's something about that "decisive moment", even in fashion...

Interesting as an aside to see that "Paranormal Activity" has just become the most profitable movie of all time!

I'm hoping to get to Somerset House this week (from up North) and may I wish Nick and his team all the best for a great shoot. Talent is the ability to do hard work in a consistently constructive direction over a long period of time (Whistler).

Best to you all

In reply to Berti:

Happy to read your reference to that absolutely fantastic iconic phtograph and out of this world image ... a kind of moment of TRIUMPH in the ART of FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY .... extremely hard to imitate but absolutely inspiring ! .... Dovima and the Elephants is just MAGNIFICENT ! ...

And to think that in 2004 it went up for auction at Christie's, London , and sold for 73.000 euro ! ..... but the true aesthetic and inspiring value of such image can't be really printed in paper money ....:)

In reply to hannah:

I do so much digital retouching, sometimes the process of retouching makes me think in commercial marketing and advertising, the images we see have been hugely altered that could we still call them photographs? They are more digital images. Even though in the past photographs were also retouched, but never retouched like the level we see today. What we see have almost nothing to do with the real products, we could drastically change background, cut and paste something else into it, take away all the lines on model's face, completely change her shape, her skin tone, add makeup on her, almost anything one knows how to do in photoshop could be done. Is that still photograpy or are we talking about the future of the art of retouching?