Many photographers build their career by finding a niche and staying in it. One, though, has spent five decades systematically ignoring this advice. And the results, collected in TASCHEN's new limited-edition monograph Albert Watson: KAOS, make a compelling argument that specialization might be overrated.
The book opens with Albert Watson's breakthrough: a 1973 portrait of Alfred Hitchcock holding a plucked goose for Harper's Bazaar. From there, it moves swiftly through celebrity portraits (David Bowie, Steve Jobs, Mick Jagger), fashion editorials for Vogue, nudes that push physical boundaries, still lifes of Elvis's gold suit and Tutankhamun's golden glove, landscapes of his native Scotland, and documentary work from China to Morocco. It's a portfolio that would seem scattered and chaotic, if it weren't so consistently excellent.
