Artist Spotlight: Tim Hailand

Tim Hailand is a photographic artist based in New York and Berlin. For the last 10 years he has been focusing mainly on portraiture, photographing artists, athletes, performers, and designers. With his first book, One Day in the Life of Daniel Radcliffe, he began his publishing venture, and he is now adding two more titles to the series: One Day in the Life of Rufus Wainwright and One Day in the Life of Jake Shears. In 2008, Hailand exhibited in both Berlin and Aspen, Colo., showing works from his "Statues" and "Photos Re-photographed" series. In the "Statues" works, Hailand photographs statues in an intimate way, as if they were living people. In the "Photos Re-photographed" works, he retakes his own portraits in new settings, creating an open-ended narrative.

Hailand's work is in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the archives of New York's Museum of Modern Art, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y. His work has appeared in Visionaire, The New Yorker, Paper, Playgirl, Frieze, Artforum, W, Time Out London, Dutch, HX, Next, Aspen, and V magazines, and is in the private collections of Hilla Becher, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, Pete Burns, Elton John, Chaka Khan, Patti LuPone, Isaac Mizrahi, Stevie Nicks, the Pet Shop Boys, Daniel Radcliffe, Jake Shears, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Mario Testino, Rufus Wainwright, and Vivienne Westwood.

For more examples of Hailand's work, please visit his website: TimHailand.com

The Advocate: When did you first have “that special feeling” with a camera? Can you describe that?

Tim Hailand: I went to Miami with a small pocket camera in 1997 and brought along a box of cutout letters. I went down to the beach and started spelling out words on the sand, in my hand, in the surf. When I looked at the images I knew I was on to something. The camera is my friend.

Can you talk about your relationship with a model when you are shooting a portrait, but from the other side: What do you think it is like to be photographed by Tim Hailand?

Well, I feel my job is to make the model feel comfortable so that they reveal themselves to me, to my camera. I enjoy making people laugh, putting people at ease — I think most of my subjects are comfortable around me.

Tell us about your ongoing project, One Day in the Life of. How did that series come about? And do we get to know who is next?

I originally shot friend and singer Jake Shears for a magazine years ago. I decided to continue the series on my own. In the midst of shooting Dan Radcliffe, who is also a friend, the idea of publishing a book emerged, and so the series was born. I have also shot New York legend Joey Arias and will edit that book next. Next year I'm hoping to include Tilda Swinton in the series.

See more on the One Day in the Life of series here.