"There’s a lot of old school thinking that goes on towards the body," Knight tells us of why the brand's approach to exercise beyond the walls of the club is different. "So I wanted to understand the ethos of Equinox - they are teaching that it isn’t just about working out one part of the body, it’s about looking at it as a whole system. They treat across a whole range of movements and dynamics and activities. And the thrust is that it isn’t about fitness - hence the logo and slogan - it’s about life."
"This is probably how fitness should be seen," he continues. "Not in isolation, as something that makes your torso bigger or hips slimmer but has no effect on the rest of your body. I liked their approach to fitness. I like the fact they saw it not just as a set of exercises to get you fit, but as a way of living your life."
The elements that Equinox's campaign celebrates through dance, movement, vocals and real-life emotion are Spirit, represented by Grammy Award-winning performer Ciara; Energy, embodied by a group of freerunners, parkour athletes and stuntmen; Light, depicted by Maria Borges, which she describes as "such a special experience - especially when they covered me head-to-toe with 200 bottles of lip gloss to get into the part!”; Love, displayed by Knight's long-term collaborator Jazzelle Zanaughtti and her partner Sadiq Nasir; Water, represented by models Hannah Ferguson and Richard Ampaw; Life, personified by ballet dancer Sergei Polunin; and Voice, which musician Saint JHN expresses by reciting the It’s Not Fitness, It's Life mantra.
"The casting for this was really important," Knight says. "There was a really great set of people to work with. The brief that came from Equinox was as simple as it’s not just about fitness it’s about life, and then it was up to me to suggest people who I thought would in some way bring that through. We looked at trying to describe life in different ways. We talked about light and energy and looked to break it down to its scientific building blocks. And then a more esoteric or spiritual way, we talked about what life is. We talked about love and we talked about the soul."
"The casting for this was really important," Knight says. "There was a really great set of people to work with. The brief that came from Equinox was as simple as it’s not just about fitness it’s about life, and then it was up to me to suggest people who I thought would in some way bring that through. We looked at trying to describe life in different ways. We talked about light and energy and looked to break it down to its scientific building blocks. And then a more esoteric or spiritual way, we talked about what life is. We talked about love and we talked about the soul."
"I’ve always wanted to work with Ciara so couldn’t she be spirit? I’ve always wanted to work with Sergei so perhaps he could represent life itself," the photographer continues of the talent that he enlisted and the qualities that they brought to each element. "The thing that is interesting with ballet dancers is that their goal is to become weightless. They want to overcome gravity almost. It’s such a spiritual representation of life. It felt very poetic to me. Then I thought, who can represent love? I know that Jazelle is particularly in love with her partner, so why don’t we just ask them? We’re filming and photographing two people kissing so they should really mean it. I would rather have the tenderness and the playfulness and the reality of a couple who are in love."
The powerful short film marks an ongoing series of collaborations between the acclaimed photographer, his fashion platform SHOWstudio and the Equinox brand. “Knowing that the articulation of life itself is not an easy brief, I was excited to collaborate with Knight because his whole body of work is about using the visual to explain the emotion of a moment or concept,” Elizabeth Nolan, Executive Creative Director of Equinox, says. “Equinox exists to enable people to maximise the potential within themselves, and the brand has always expressed itself by showing the world an image not of what we do — but of why we do it."
Knight's own relationship with health and fitness goes back a long way. "Photography and being a photographer is sort of a performative art," he tells us. "It isn’t where you stand or sit at an easel. You’re jumping around and moving a lot, you’re almost acting as a sort of mirror for the model to emulate, so it's very physical." He has filmed all of his sessions since the ‘80s, which he says has given him an awareness of his own movement on the rare occasions when he needed to watch them back. Knight's fitness regime is impressive, spurred on, he says, by starting to feel a little less agile several years ago. It was then that he took up pilates, which he now does for at least 15 minutes every day.
"I enjoy it enormously just because of the moment you have in an otherwise busy timetable. Just to be calm and still and think about your physicality and to actually work on the physical side of your body rather than just the imaginative side," he reflects of the impact that it has on his life. "It’s so important that you keep dynamic and you keep your body moving. Our bodies are all different and they all work in slightly different ways, but we all have our bodies as systems. Everything is an integrated system and you have to train with that in mind."
Knight's own relationship with health and fitness goes back a long way. "Photography and being a photographer is sort of a performative art," he tells us. "It isn’t where you stand or sit at an easel. You’re jumping around and moving a lot, you’re almost acting as a sort of mirror for the model to emulate, so it's very physical." He has filmed all of his sessions since the ‘80s, which he says has given him an awareness of his own movement on the rare occasions when he needed to watch them back. Knight's fitness regime is impressive, spurred on, he says, by starting to feel a little less agile several years ago. It was then that he took up pilates, which he now does for at least 15 minutes every day.
"I enjoy it enormously just because of the moment you have in an otherwise busy timetable. Just to be calm and still and think about your physicality and to actually work on the physical side of your body rather than just the imaginative side," he reflects of the impact that it has on his life. "It’s so important that you keep dynamic and you keep your body moving. Our bodies are all different and they all work in slightly different ways, but we all have our bodies as systems. Everything is an integrated system and you have to train with that in mind."
No comments:
Post a Comment