The photographer shares the story of 5 iconic photographs

Albert Watson seems to be again on 50 years of pictures in a e-book revealed by Taschen

Although his title won’t be acquainted to most people, his pictures rank among the many most recognizable of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. At 83, Albert Watson is opening an exhibition at A. Galerie till December twentieth, 2025. There, he has gathered a few of his biggest photographs in a luxurious e-book revealed by Taschen and popping out on November twenty eighth. Across 400 pages, readers can journey by means of poetic landscapes of the Scottish moors and graphic pictures captured in Rome in 2024… Not to say his legendary portraits of celebrities like Mick Jagger, Sade, and Michael Jackson. This e-book, which Albert Watson himself sees as a form of “chaos” – therefore the title – brings collectively many years of labor wherein all mediums mix collectively, from movie pictures to digital prints.

In tune with the occasions, the Scottish photographer envisions this collection of pictures like an “Instagram feed,” the place numerous topics intertwine, with no thematic grouping or chronological order. “My approach is rather unusual because I mix genres,” Albert Watson tells us with a wry smile. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m unclassifiable, but if I had to define my work, I’d say it’s the sum of my studies and my passions. I studied graphic design, cinema, and applied arts. All those influences show up in the graphic structure and cinematic feel of my images.”

Who can higher sum up his work than the photographer himself? So Numéro lets Albert Watson take us behind the scenes of 5 pictures which have outlined his profession, together with his iconic portraits of Steve Jobs, Andy Warhol, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock: First movie star ever photographed by Albert Watson (1976)

“This portrait of Alfred Hitchcock isn’t my best picture, but it is important to me because it was my very first big commission for a magazine. The director was supposed to share a recipe on how to cook a goose in Harper’s Bazaar for their Christmas issue. At the time, I had never photographed anyone famous. I was terrified before I got to the set. Just imagine being told you’re going to shoot Hitchcock when you’re still a film student!”

“Even so, I trusted my instincts and ended up proposing a completely different concept from what the magazine had planned. They wanted him to pose with a prepared dish, but I suggested he hold the raw goose by the neck. I thought it was funnier and more Hitchcock. I even added a little ribbon to the bird to echoe the Christmas decoration! This portrait marks the start of my career and reminds me of the confidence I had to muster at the time… Even though I can’t help but notice the lighting mistakes [laughs].”

The legendary portrait of Steve Jobs (2006)

“I was to photograph him at 9am. I arrived there two hours early to set up the lighting and prepare everything down to the last detail. I knew Steve Jobs was a busy man and I only had an hour to shoot his portrait. Just a few minutes before the session, a PR guy from Apple came in and told me that Steve didn’t like photographers. But at this point in my life, I was far more confident than I used to be when I first started out. I didn’t care if he was a pain in the neck, I only cared about doing a good job. So, I thought about how to make the session run smoothly. When he walked in, I said to him, ‘I have good news for you. I only need you for thirty minutes!’ He smiled and asked what I wanted him to do.”

“I’d managed to put him at ease. I asked him to pose as if he were in a meeting, sitting accross the table from people who disagreed with him, but knowing deep down that he was right. He replied, ‘No problem, I do that every day.’ And just like that, the shot was done in a few minutes. I gave him a Polaroid version of the portrait. He looked at it for a moment, then said, ‘That’s maybe the best photo of me that’s ever been taken.’”

“He later told me he kept it on his desk for years. I also remember how surprised he was to see me shooting on film, not with a digital camera. I told him digital still couldn’t deliver the results I was after. He nodded and told me it soon would. He was right, of course!”

When Andy Warhol noticed himself because the Terminator (1986)

“At the time, Andy Warhol was in a modeling agency, meaning he was available. You could book him for a shoot the same way you would book Naomi Campbell. If the job was interesting, he would do it. He liked posing for pictures, just as much as he enjoyed shaping the artistic direction. He had even co-founded Interview magazine. So when German Vogue asked me to shoot a sunglasses campaign featuring Warhol, I immediately said yes. I had known him for years and had already worked with him many times. I knew exactly how he worked.”

“But this time, it was he who came to me with a concept for the shoot. He asked me if we could do a portrait in the style of the Terminator movie poster with Arnold Schwarzenegger [released in 1984, editor’s note]. He even pulled the image out of his pocket to show me, pointing out every detail he liked. I couldn’t help but smile and said we could try. I shot him from a low angle, to stay true to the original photo, and we played with the reflections in his sunglasses. He loved the result. Imagining himself as the Terminator really made him laugh. Andy was genuinely a funny and brilliant person.”

Nature as the primary actor within the body

“It was the end of the day, in wintertime. We were driving and decided to stop near a loch [‘lake’ in Scottish, editor’s note]. At that precise moment, the sun came out. I had my digital camera with me, and when I pointed the lens at the lake, I saw these rays of light piercing through the screen. Then I took a second shot, which turned out completely different because the wind had shifted everything in the frame. And yet, I hadn’t moved. I was in the exact same spot.”

“I looked at these two photos, so similar yet entirely distinct, and I decided to continue the series, simply letting nature change each image. The movement on the surface of the water, the wind, the light, the reflections, the clouds… Everything around me was moving, constantly altering the composition. The photographs almost look like a series of abstractions or impressionist paintings — very graphic, with a conceptual edge, since the eye can’t latch onto anything concrete. I especially like that idea, as it stands in stark contrast to my celebrity portraits, which are usually immediately recognizable.”

A distinct tackle Rome, between mafia and no-man’s land

“I’m very fond of this picture. I took it during my latest project, in Rome. The shot was captured at the harbour in Ostia. I was walking around the area when I came across this diving board, probably dating back to the 1920s. IT was completely abandoned, crumbling, and fenced off with heavy wire mesh. The minute I saw the structure, I knew I was a good idea to include it in the series. But that’s when the trouble began… It was incredibly difficult to access. The diving board stands behind a nightclub run by the mafia, and the land is owned by the city of Rome, which prohibits anyone from crossing it in hopes of eventually isolating the club and forcing the mafia to leave.”

“To take my photo, I needed two permissions: one from the city of Rome, and one from the mafia! Once I managed to get both — the mafia only gave me thirty minutes, negotiated through some unofficial conversations at a bar. I asked a swimmer from the Italian national team to pose at the top of the diving board. The result is highly graphic and tells a story. That’s why I’m so attached to it.”

“Albert Watson. Kaos”, Taschen (Hardcover in slipcase, 408 pages, Multilingual Edition – German, English, French), accessible on November twenty eighth, 2025.

“Albert Watson. Kaos II”, exhibition open till December twentieth, 2025 at A. Galerie, 4 rue Léonce Reynaud, Paris sixteenth.