New intel on the start of Kate Moss’ career has a gem too good to ignore. Photographer Owen Scarbiena was tasked with taking some images of the just-discovered 14-year-old and quickly found her to be a natural who was easy to work with (and totally understood the mood he wanted to capture).
“Some girls come with a ready-made photo pose, and you have to work through that,” he told The Telegraph. “I just said to Kate, ‘Pretend you’re bored waiting at the bus stop,’ and she got it.” The world should be pleased Scarbiena and Moss spoke the same language—who knows whether a photographer with a different style could have pried out the vibe that created one of history’s biggest supermodels. And while toothy, happy shots of the Brit aren’t impossible to find, it’s fair to say her signature look is more of the sulky variety (which, per this reveal, might be best described as boredom).
Moss backstage at a fashion show in the early ’90s
The photographer also revealed that Moss came in with zero “pre-conceived ideas about how models are supposed to pose or stand. She was unimposing, innocent, fresh, unaffected and had a striking, nymph-like beauty,” he told British Vogue.
Scarbiena’s photos of Moss will be exhibited at Kate Moss: Unseen in London later this month.
