MORE ABOUT CLIVE ARROWSMITH

Photography became an obsession for Clive Arrowsmith while serving as a graphic designer and art director for television productions throughout England.

Unable to find a photographer to produce much-needed images to accompany his graphic designs, Clive decided to teach himself.

Fascinated by lighting, he turned to the Renaissance painters he had studied while in art school to help guide his work as a photographer. It is the chiaroscuro in painting that continues to influence his work even today.

After leaving art school in North Wales, where he had studied painting and design, he attended Kingston College of Art (where he gained a first class Degree) on graduation he painted for two years. He then began taking photographs whilst working as a graphic designer for Rediffusion TV (the makers of the legendary music show Ready Steady Go!).

On leaving television to work as a photographer, he soon gained commissions from leading fashion magazines (following the delivery of a dynamic set of photos of the Paris Collections) for, most notably, British & French Vogue, Nova Magazine, Harpers, The Sunday Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire U.S.A, and the F.T."How to Spend It" luxury magazine and numerous publications world wide.

Clive Arrowsmith has since become one of Britain's most revered fashion, beauty and portrait photographers.

L.S Lowry, the famous English painter once said to me:“I paint people as I see them. 

Well, I photograph them as I see them. It may be an obvious fact that one can only photograph what is in front of the camera, but by manipulating the light and shade one can add mood and dimension, capturing that which only exists in a moment.”

“The ghost of electricity lies in the face of all people: their passions, their sadness and their joy. This is what I try to bring out, becoming the cabaret for them, so that when their smile or laughter fades, the memory of that moment is captured by the camera. Each portrait is a moment in time that can never be repeated.”

Clive Arrowsmith studied the school of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism, and was the official photographer of the Dalai Lama. 

”Being a Buddhist, the most striking and rememberable photoshoot, it has to be my Tibetan Buddhist teacher Khyongla Rato Rinpoche and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In those moments, there was no time. They’re followed by beautiful women, of course – because I see them all as Goddesses.”

He has photographed a Who’s Who of celebrities including Yves Saint Laurent, David Bowie, Richard Gere, Yoko Ono, His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Prince Charles, Sammy Davis Jr, Ravi Shankar, David Hockney, Philip Pullman, Jane Birkin, Marianne Faithfull, Richard Branson, LS Lowry, Bryan Ferry, Bob Scaggs, Vidal Sassoon, Jeremy Irons, Billy Connolly, The Monty Pythons, John Hurt, Alain Delon, Tom Hardy, Cher, Carrie Fisher, Sienna Miller, Judi Dench, Liza Minnelli, Liv Tyler, Robert Palmer, Kate Bush, Ronald Dahl, Peter Gabriel, Damien Hirst, Michael Caine to name just a few of the celebrated people Arrowsmith has photographed.

He has worked extensively for Vogue as well as Harper’s Bazaar, The Sunday Times Colour Magazine and Vanity Fair.

Having worked on so many major stills advertising campaigns for clients like De Beers, Revlon, G.H.D. Morello, Caroline Castigliano, Lexus, Hassleblad and Yves Saint Laurent etc. Clive continued to broaden his creative scope by moving on to direct commercials. He has directed for Heinz, Revlon, Hamlet Cigars (winner of The Silver Lion Cannes Film Festival), Rapeed Sunglasses, Greenmail Whitney Beer and music videos of artists like Lee Griffiths, Jamiroquai, Jools Holland, ZTT and Def Leppard and still has ambitions to direct more documentary and film projects.

Clive has worked on the Free Tibet campaign with the Heavy Metal band, Chthonic, in Taiwan.

Clive recently reinvigorated his long standing relationship with Japanese design legend Kansai Yamamoto (he designed the clothes for David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust incarnation) and travelled to Japan to work with Kansai photographing his new collection and filming behind the scenes at his ‘HelloTokyo’ Super show.

Clive Arrowsmith is the only photographer to have photographed the Pirelli Calendar two years in succession, taking on the themes of Heroines and Chinese Astrology with typical enthusiasm. The Heroines calendar was also the subject of a TV documentary for Granada TV which was fronted by broadcasting legend Michael Aspel and documented the story behind the pictures, including the entire set blowing of the edge of a cliff!