Saturday, May 14, 2011

Kate Davitt by Alex W-H

In September 1985 I had one of my very favourite spreads in Vancouver Magazine. Malcolm Parry (the editor) and the art director Chris Dahl had dispatched me to photograph three beautiful Vancouver women and one handsome male body builder to illustrate an article by Les Wiseman on diets. The article would purport to explain that the people I photographed looked like the way they looked because of their diets. As I left with my assignment Mac told me, “Try, if possible to get them to pose with as little as possible."


The best of all the shots is the one I took of Kate Davitt. At the time she was one of the hottest of all the local models. I felt very lucky to have her pose for me and so I  took a photograph that I would be proud of.




Today in a moment of idleness I tried to find her whereabouts. She has not been around or searchable for some years now. But this time around I found a website that had pictures of her and I was amazed how good a model she had been in Europe at least five years before she posed for me. Previously to her shoot with me she had posed for what in my opinion is the best fashion photographer Vancouver ever had. This was Howard Fry. In fact it had been Fry who had suggested to Les Wiseman for his piece on diets.



From the  Peter Marlow Composite Archives I have discovered that photographers of note had photographed Davitt. But you cannot imagine my surprise and sheer pleasure to learn that three of those photographers were photographers that I have always admired. One was Sarah Moon and the other Bruce Webber. But it is the third that made my jump with joy. That photographer is Arthur Elgort one of the most elegant fashion photographers of all time.

Handsome remuneration has never been one of the salient features for a magazine photographer in Vancouver. But some of the fringe benefits, like this one, of knowing that in a small way I was in the company of three big fashion photographers, make it all worth it.

Two very feminine women
Kate Davitt under the boom