Colin Lane: making rock 'n' roll sexy again

IS THIS IT, Colin Lane

The photograph that I am going to be critically reviewing is an image that holds a lot of meaning and memories for me.  “IS THIS IT” is The Strokes 2001 debut album cover, and my favourite image of all time. The artist behind the image is The Strokes’ official photographer Colin Lane. I chose to review this because it represents a personal era of my life, as the band I listened to over this era of my life was The Strokes, and this album also makes me feel nostalgic, and miss the era that this photograph represents so well.

Colin Lane, 1999, IS THIS IT. [Photograph] (Blunt Photography London, RCA Records)

Colin took this photograph in 1999 to support his portfolio of fashion photography. At the time he had no idea that the image was going to become one of the most recognised images within rock ‘n’roll. 

 Colin Lane is a photographer from New York, New York, and is represented by Blunt Photography London. Colin is well-known for his work within fashion and music photography. Primarily a fashion photographer, Colin was approached by “The Face” magazine in 2001 to photograph the new band to enter the New York and London indie circuits, The Strokes.  As The Strokes weren’t well known at the time, the only bit of press they were receiving was from releasing their 3 song E.P, “The Modern Age” (RCA Records, The Strokes, and Produced by Gordon Raphael).

Colin didn’t have much of an idea as to who they were, so when he went to shoot them he took his portfolio of work with him for them to gain an idea as to what the final images from their shoot with Colin would look like. The “arse” shot was in the portfolio, and The Strokes all agreed that this would be a suitable image for the album cover, if Colin gave his permission, which he did. After that, the rest is history, Colin has now photographed some of the world’s most famous bands and musicians including Robbie Williams, The Arctic Monkeys, etc., and had work published for companies such as Jack Daniels, and Sony.

The photograph was taken on a Mamiya 7 Rangefinder Camera in 1999. The original print was on Celluloid photographic paper. The image is black and white but with a very high level of contrast, and I believe the fact that the image is black and white makes the image look more like a photograph, because, if the audience saw a copy on the image in colour and in black and white, the colour image looks like a copy of reality, but the black and white image makes the audience automatically adapt to know that the image is actually a photograph, which leads me on to talking about the texture of the photograph. The texture is very of the photograph seems very smooth, and the fact the glove is so shiny, leather and in focus supports the smoothness that I stated.

The context of the image is that the gluteal of the model is framed to be the primary focal point, and the photographer (Colin Lane) has made her put a leather glove on, and place it on the model’s gluteal suggestively. I believe he did this in order to obtain a sexy picture, with a vintage feel, and by not including a face in the photograph, it means anyone can relate to the image, without a personal feel. Due to the sexual nature of the image, The Strokes and Colin lane caused controversy across the globe, especially in the U.K and USA. Woolworths and HMV across the U.K were both very reluctant about stocking IS THIS IT due to the Photograph, but as it was in such high demand they eventually both stocked the item, but  the case was worse for the USA version. The image was banned from all stores across America, causing The Strokes to choose a new album cover. In relation to the ban, US magazine, Entertainment Weekly gathered quotes from The Strokes band manager Ryan Gentles about the decision. “Ryan Gentles, concurs that singer Julian Casablancas ''wanted to change it for the whole world. He phoned and said 'I found something even cooler than the ass picture (to replace Colin Lane’s IS THIS IT photograph).” [Willman, C. September 14th 2001.]

 CRITICAL ANAYSIS OF Colin Lane’s “IS THIS IT”

The image, as mentioned previously is the backside of a woman, with a hand wearing a leather glove placed upon the backside of the woman in a rather provocative manner. The photograph was taken against a plain white wall, and a flash was used in order to give off very little shadowing, and make the image very clear. The brightest part of the image is the background where the typography of “The Strokes IS THIS IT” is placed in the top left hand corner, but the primary focal point is the backside itself. I believe the image represents “that glamorous woman” that we all aspire to obtain, but I also believe that the image has a sense of freedom about it.

The provocative and sexual nature behind the image helps support this sense of freedom idea that I have, as the choice to be kinky is the female in the photograph, plus we’ve all got a wild side to us. The fact that the photograph is black and white reminds us that it is a photo, but the image looks like it could be the bottom of Marylyn Monroe, or another woman from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, the days before colour. The fact that Colin chose to shoot on black and white supports the idea of “Glamour” and also brings in the elements of it being timeless.

Colin’s intentions were to create a photograph that was purely and simply just a sexy image that was technically photographed very well, as he mentions in an interview with STEAL-LIFE.com in January 2005. Colin shot about 10 photos in order to obtain the “sexy image” and he had taken inspiration from photographers such as Jim Marshall. [Anon., January 2005][Lane. C, 1999]

As I have mentioned previously, I absolutely adore the image and everything it stands for, whether it being my personal perception of the image(glamour, freedom, rock ‘n’ roll) or what the photographer intended to shoot (purely just a sexy image). I love it because it reminds me of a personal era of my life that I adored, but also, technically speaking it is such a powerful picture, and a “V sign” to the world.

There is a story behind the photograph as Colin states on the music photography website steal-life.com, ““It was basically my ex-girlfriend - it was all about the black gloves. I’d done this fashion shoot for the Observer and the stylist had left all these clothes at my apartment and there were these black leather gloves which we hadn’t used in the shoot and so I said to my girlfriend, ‘come on let’s take some photos with these black gloves’ and she was like ‘no, I’m tired I want to go to bed’ and I eventually persuaded her to do a couple of pictures. I put them in my portfolio and the day we did the press shoot I bought my portfolio along because The Strokes had never really seen my work and the arse shot was in there and Julian saw it and was just like, ‘that’s cool, would you mind if we used it for the cover?’ So my girlfriend ended up getting paid about 1,000 dollars for the shot from RCA and she never complained about modelling for me again”. [Lane. C, 2005] [Anon., 2005]

I believe that this simplistically composed black and white photograph is so much more than just a photograph of a bare backside, I believe that it is the photograph that represents the door opening to modern rock ‘n’ roll, and the closest thing to what rock ‘n’ roll was. Is This It is the album and the photograph that changed modern indie rock’s image and sound forever. Is This It, is the sexy image of a photographer’s ex- girlfriend that won’t leave your head after you’ve seen it. Colin Lane’s Is This It, is “it”, whatever “it” may be.