Annie Collinge started her career assisting photographers at the age of 17 and continued with degrees from Brighton University and Central Saint Martins. Her images often incorporate eerie and childlike elements twisted with a playful take on scale and perspective.
She launched her first major project Five Inches of Limbo in 2012, featuring pictures of junk store dolls alongside people she found to resemble them. The photos became, self-published with Margaret Atwood’s poem Five Poems for Dolls from which the project takes its title. This helped establish her signature aesthetic, which has been described as “sad and sweet”. Today, Collinge is regularly commissioned by editorial, clients like Vice, Dazed and Vogue while collaborating with artists like Rottingdean Bazaar and Julie Verhoeven.
"I think fashion images are having a great moment currently, social media has taken the power away from the gate keepers like magazines."
The range of your clients suggest your work moves between the realms of fine art, commercial and fashion. What draws you into fashion, specifically?
I think fashion images have the potential to be such a creative medium, as you can tell a story and control your environment. It’s always strange when people just photograph good-looking people in a studio. To me, photographs need to have a mystery to them to draw people in and make them wonder what is or has been happening. I think fashion images are having a great moment currently, social media has taken the power away from the gate keepers like magazines. So now, really interesting people who might never have been given a chance are finding their way into the industry.
How did you create the images for Atelier by Vagabond?
I wanted to bring the shoes to life, and just make off-key images. I received the samples and played around with shapes, colors and then bought all kind of props from hardware stores and charity shops near my studio . In the end, I used printouts of my own hands that were rephotographed and mixed with everyday household objects. I didn’t want these to look like they were shot in a studio, I wanted to make them unusual but believable scenes. I’m happy that I wasn’t put under pressure to make them too much like an advert.