Born on a farm in the southeastern Kansas town of Columbus, Stanley Darland’s life has taken him to University of Wyoming on a football scholarship and the runways of international fashion as a model and photographer for the likes of Valentino and GQ. He is also a painter and sculptor. The photographer and artist lives with his wife, Rosie, south of Powell River at Palm Beach.
Do you remember your first camera?
In 1963, I found my brother’s Olympus 10 and started shooting photos. He didn’t appreciate it so my father bought me my own; it was a Polaroid. Later, I went to New York and became a fashion model and with my first cheque I purchased a used Nikon. I started shooting everything.
Do you have a favourite photograph?
It’s by a French photographer named Michel Momy. We met when he was visiting from Paris and I was living in my studios in New York. He shot an ad for Bloomingdale’s for a woman’s stocking. The photograph is of the leg of this beautiful, long-legged model. It was scandalous at the time. You couldn’t see above her thigh and there’s a little boy wearing a baseball cap looking at her foot. It’s so simple and it was so powerful for me.
Do you have a favourite photograph that you shot?
My favourite is the one I published in GQ. They gave me a case of Baileys Irish Cream to photograph. All you saw was the glass and the Baileys sitting next to it and a perfect pour that splashed in and out of the glass.
What are your thoughts about the recent return to film by some photographers?
I’m a proponent of that. Young people don’t understand the chemistry, let alone the process. The first film I developed was in a bathroom in Paris. Those experiences had great value when you went off to shoot a roll of film. If you were walking around the streets of Paris or New York and shooting film you thought about the price and shot more sparingly than people do today.
For more info, go to stanleydarland.smugmug.com.
