Russell James

Russell James Fine-art photographer with collections in fashion, celebrity and culture. Founder of Nomad Two Worlds Foundation that provides opportunities through the arts.

PRINTS AND MORE: www.russelljames.com
EUROPE:www.camerawork.de/en/
USA: https://www.faheyklein

Great pride at seeing my dear friend, Professor Colleen Hayward OAM, WIN the Wesfarmers Aboriginal Award at the 2026 Wes...
05/29/2026

Great pride at seeing my dear friend, Professor Colleen Hayward OAM, WIN the Wesfarmers Aboriginal Award at the 2026 Western Australian of the Year Awards.

Colleen has always been that friend I bump into where I’m fascinated at her understanding of the most complex issues she has deep knowledge of - and she’s able to explain it to a school drop out like me in a way I can understand - thats big!

A distinguished Noongar leader, educator, and advocate, she was honored for her 35+ years of transformative work across academia, government, and corporate sectors - including being the first Aborginal woman appointed as Director of an ASX listed company.

My selfishly most favourite part, Colleen is also on the board of the footballl team I scream for every game.

Congratulations Colleen!!

The Honorary Palme d'Or doesn't come around often. When it does, it tends to find people who have earned it ten times ov...
05/24/2026

The Honorary Palme d'Or doesn't come around often. When it does, it tends to find people who have earned it ten times over.

Barbra Streisand received hers at Cannes today.

Few people do what she does. Even fewer have done it for the better part of sixty years, at that level, on their own terms.

Congratulations, Barbra.

This photograph is available as a editioned print: https://www.russelljames.com/collections/icons/portraits/barbra-streisand-side-lounge

A different cut from the VS archive - this one's about the music.Everyone remembers the Angels. The performers were a st...
05/21/2026

A different cut from the VS archive - this one's about the music.

Everyone remembers the Angels. The performers were a story of their own, though, and I had a front-row seat to it for the better part of fifteen years.

Bruno Mars before he walked out in 2012. Seal in 2007, in a suit that was its own light source. The Weeknd backstage in 2015. Bieber, still a teenager. The Black Eyed Peas in full uniform. Rihanna in a rare still moment. Lady Gaga in Paris, 2016, doing what only Gaga does.

These were people about to step into one of the most-watched performances of the year, often with three minutes' notice that it was time. The runway was the runway. The music made it the show.

More from the archive: https://www.russelljames.com

Twenty-five years ago, ten miles off Nassau, I shot an underwater project.The character was Innocence: a water creature....
04/30/2026

Twenty-five years ago, ten miles off Nassau, I shot an underwater project.

The character was Innocence: a water creature. Ancient. Uncorrupted. Something that existed before modern man arrived and named everything.

I'd been listening to music with a spiritual edge and wanted to build a visual world around it.

Estella Warren was the only person I considered for the role. A near-Olympic synchronized swimmer who could hold her breath at depth and still be present as a subject. Not many people can do both.

This cave presents a twenty-minute window each day where the water holds perfectly still. Then a vortex. We shot in the silence between.

Returning to this work now, on film, feels like the right time.

Images from the Innocence series are available as signed, limited edition prints: https://www.russelljames.com/collections/nomad/two-worlds

2007. I walked into the red desert with a team, a vision, and a fantasy about an artistic collaboration.Clifton Bieundur...
04/22/2026

2007. I walked into the red desert with a team, a vision, and a fantasy about an artistic collaboration.

Clifton Bieundurry and I had already been friends for years by then. We'd met in Ibiza in the 90s, introduced by our mutual friend Paul Boon. He was there for music. I was there with a camera. Different tools, same pull toward the country we came from.

When he asked me to come out bush with him in the Kimberley, I said yes without really understanding what I was saying yes to.

Two weeks in the bush. Nothing I was used to. A few days in, I got physically ill. Clifton said that was the point: I needed to be stripped down before I could actually see anything. He was right.

Growing up in Western Australia, I'd felt a pull toward this land my whole life. I'd also grown up with blind spots I didn't understand until much later.

That trip began to change that.

The heat. The scale. The silence that makes you feel like the earth is watching you, not the other way around.

What became the Nomad Two Worlds Foundation didn't start in a gallery or a boardroom. It started there with Clifton, his family, and the understanding that a collaboration this sacred can't be planned. It has to be earned.

The Foundation now works with Indigenous and marginalised artists across Australia, North America, Haiti and beyond.

Learn more about the foundation here: https://www.nomadtwoworlds.com/

04/13/2026

Virgin Gorda, 2004.

The British Virgin Islands have a quality of light I haven’t seen matched anywhere in the world. This sunset was proof of it.

We’d been shooting on those rock formations all day. Waiting on the sun. It dropped behind cloud and held there: I wasn’t sure we were getting it.

Then it broke. Saturated, golden.

The kind of intensity that gives you seconds, not minutes. I was working the light from behind Gisele, bouncing it back directly into her face. That’s what you’re seeing.

At the end of a long day on those rocks, Gisele found this position of ease. Nothing posed about it. She’d become part of that landscape.

I had a Polaroid camera with me. That original is on the wall right now at Camera Work Berlin as part of a group exhibition, Peel Off, on view through June 6, available for acquisition through the gallery.

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