Photography & Digital ArtOCT 3, 2019

Invisible Jumpers: 5 Years Spent Blending Models Into Backgrounds With Custom Knitwear

I spent 5 years creating these images with custom clothes knitted by an amazing knitter, Nina Dodd.

The project began when she showed me a sweater based on the seat covers of Brighton buses. This seemed too good an opportunity to miss, so we found an eye-catching model and photographed him on a bus.

I was so pleased with the result that I came up with more ideas for camouflaged jumpers, and the series developed.

Each of these pictures has taken me several days or weeks to research and plan, and Nina has spent weeks and sometimes months knitting for each one. I have generally begun with an idea: ‘Could I photograph someone blending into a cliff edge?’ Then I go looking for the perfect location.

The locations have to be eye-catching but simple enough to be able to be knitted. They also have to be places that aren’t going to change too fast, as the knitting takes a few weeks. It would have been terrible to prepare a sweater and then not be able to shoot because the location has been demolished.

Once I’ve found the location, I photograph someone standing where I would like the model to be in the final picture. I draw over this scouting photograph and annotate the picture with different colours and patterns so Nina can plan how to knit. Often there are 10 or 12 different shades of yarn in a single picture, and up to 24 balls of wool at any one time for the more complicated designs.

After 5 years and over a thousand hours of knitting, the project has now been published in book form by Hoxton Mini Press.

More info: josephford.net