The Kiwi, the Camera and the Coffee Cups

Food artist Henry Hargreaves talks about last suppers, deep fried gadgets and how his love of coffee cups inspired his most important project to date.

Henry Hargreaves is a New Zealand born resident of Williamsburg, New York. He describes himself as a photographer and food artist. When people ask me to describe Henry, I tell them he is a sea otter.

Clearly my description has nothing to do with his physical appearance; Henry doesn't even bear a passing physical resemblance to a sea otter. It’s not how he looks, but rather the image that pops into my head whenever I think of how well he’s adapted to his natural habitat. Just as a sea otter floats idly on its back nonchalantly munching shellfish, Henry moves effortlessly across the surface of the World Wide Web, completely at one with his environment. It’s as though he was born into it — which of course he wasn’t.

Henry Hargreaves grew up in an artistic household in Christchurch, New Zealand. Even though he occasionally used the darkroom at the local art school at the weekends (his aunt was the Department Head), his first real foray into photography wasn't behind the camera, it was in front of it.

After graduating university, Henry bought a one-way ticket to London. During a short stopover in Bangkok, he was approached by a fashion stylist who asked him if he'd be interested in some modelling. Despite some initial misgivings, Henry worked on three shoots before continuing on to London where, with the polaroids from Thailand in hand, he secured his first agent. Soon afterwards, he began strutting the runways of London, Paris, Milan and New York for the likes of Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci and Louis Vuitton; and posing enthusiastically for a veritable "Who’s Who" of fashion photographers including Richard Avedon, Steven Meisel, Mario Testino and Patrick Demarchelier.

IN FRONT TO BEHIND

Though Henry thoroughly enjoyed his time modelling, he freely admits he wasn't a natural fit in the world of high fashion. He decided from the outset that his career on the catwalk would have an expiration date and he stuck to it: He retired from modelling full time in 2004 (though he is still bookable by ‘special appointment’) to move behind the camera.

Henry’s motivation to become a fashion photographer wasn't purely artistic. As he bluntly puts it, "To call a spade a spade: a young male in his 20s just loves the idea of putting a camera in his hand and seducing all sorts of beautiful women. It’s a pretty alluring story that lots of us get caught up in."

Alluring it maybe, but the trouble was he wasn't very good at it — taking fashion pictures that is. "When I tried to shoot anything fashion related, it was very derivative of something else. I couldn't forge my own path. I didn't have any fresh ideas of my own. To me it was just about trying to make a pretty girl look prettier."

Becoming a fashion model had been relatively easy; transitioning into a professional fashion photographer was proving much harder. And he wasn't making any money either. "I wasn't getting any paid commissions. I started to get editorial work, but it was very much like, 'Here’s eight pages, but you have to cover all the costs.' " Henry’s new career was effectively costing him a fortune.

New York is an insanely expensive place to live unless you're a major Wall Street trader or an oligarch. Henry was neither. So before he exhausted his savings (being a male fashion model isn't as nearly as well paid as most people think), Henry — like so many photographers, artists, actors and musicians before him — became a bartender to pay the rent.

CALLED TO THE BAR

Henry had worked his way through university in New Zealand as a waiter and it proved to be the ideal job to take with him on the road. "I always knew when I got to London or New York that I would be able to keep my head above the water financially by working in hospitality. I found that it was something that I enjoyed and I was good at." He was not only good at it, he loved it. "The best party in the city is in your bar and you're the host of it!"

Working in bars and restaurants in New York made Henry realise just how much people’s choice of food or drink defined them as people. Henry explains, "Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said, 'Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are.' That was a real thing that I was seeing; I could stereotype people. I would see them walking up to the bar I’d think 'I know this person is going to be a handful.' And sure enough, nine times out of ten, they were. I just loved the way people interacted with their food."

Back in the mid 2000s, Henry also noticed that New York bars and restaurants were woefully behind the times when it came to their websites; most simply put their menu up online. Henry wanted to change that. "When you go to the website, you want to see the atmosphere; you want to see the food; you want to see the full package that you'll be getting. As I was in that game, people said 'Well Henry, you're a photographer, why don't you take pictures of the food and the atmosphere in these restaurants? And they'll pay you to do that!' "

Henry’s success as a bartender hadn’t dulled his desire to become a photographer. He began shooting the food and interiors for a number of bars and restaurants, and found they were indeed happy to pay him. "For three or four years I was doing one shoot a week; three or four nights working [behind the bar]; and six or seven nights partying. I realized that I was going to be in the same position in a year’s time if I didn't do something about it. So I saved up enough money to take six months off. I knew that at the end of those six months, I'd either be in the position where I was making a living doing what I wanted, or it would be time to look into opening my own bar."

On his 30th Birthday in 2010, Henry became a full time photographer.

THE HIPSTER STRIKES BACK

The experience Henry had gained from working in bars was surprisingly useful working as a photographer. He'd met a lot of very cool and connected people; he'd gained valuable experience in dealing with the (sometimes difficult) public; and he'd discovered his true passion as a photographer: food.

More importantly, shooting so much web content had convinced him that his future was online. His belief was compounded when he posted a small gallery of personal photographs he'd taken in the streets around his neighborhood in Williamsburg after a particularly heavy snow fall. "The snow kind of reminded me of Hoth, so I dropped Star Wars characters into the photographs and called the series 'The Hipster Strikes Back.' "

The success of the series was way beyond anything he'd expected. "I suddenly got more traffic than I'd ever had on my site. Then I started getting calls to do other shoots. That was when I realized that I'd been approaching this the wrong way."

The success of "The Hipster Strikes Back" also made Henry realise that his photography didn’t have to be too serious to attract interest from potential clients; it just had to be personal. "I decided that this was going to be my strategy: to create content that I wanted to see; figure out ways to get it displayed online and then hopefully everything would fall into place."

Indeed it has. Over the past five years Henry has developed both his craft as a photographer and cultivated a significant online following. His series "No Seconds" — in which he re-created and photographed the last meals served to some of the most notorious killers before their execution — was an enormous hit, gaining mainstream attention and almost 2,500,000 views on Buzzfeed alone.

He followed up that success with "Deep Fried Gadgets." The series grew from a simple idea to deep fry letters of the alphabet that Henry had originally pitched to a cutting edge fashion magazine — who then promptly hired another photographer to shoot it. He’d decided his best recourse was to immediately shoot a complete deep fried series for himself. The resulting photo-essay was picked up by Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Cool Hunting, PSFK, Fast Company, Mashable and Wired to name a few. It was a fitting victory.

Since then, Henry’s been prolific, publishing a number of new series including "Band Riders," "Gingerbread Art Museums" and "Food Maps" (in collaboration with food stylist Caitlin Levin). Earlier this year he published Doomsday Preppers," which was also the subject for his TedX talk. One of his most recent series, "Soda Lollipops" was another enormous hit.

THE FIRST CUP IS THE DEEPEST

Back in the Spring of 2014, Henry started on "Coffee Cups of the World," a new project which would turn out to be altogether different from any he'd done before. Henry explains.

"One day I bought a coffee and I looked at the cup (I think it was Five Leaves) and thought 'this is a beautiful cup, I feel like I have got my money’s worth.' As I walked around I noticed that it caught people’s attention: they were looking at the cup and probably wondering where I'd got the coffee. I realized I didn't want to throw the coffee cup away; I wanted to keep it. I thought that this is the best piece of advertising: it’s making me conscious of waste; and it’s making me feel great about spending the money on the coffee because they're given me a piece of art!"

Henry began collecting coffee cups from all over New York and the US, as well as on trips back home to New Zealand and Europe. "I collected enough coffee cups to be able to release one a day, collecting 60 or 70 cups over three of four months. Once I had enough, I started putting them out there."

Henry launched Coffee Cups of the World simultaneously on Tumblr and Instagram. Almost immediately, people started contacting him with pictures of their own favorite coffee cups. "I asked the first few people who wanted to submit cups to post them to me so I could shoot them myself. I then realized that wasn’t an efficient use of anyone’s time, so I told people 'If you stick to my formula (which is shooting the cup head on with a neutral background), I'll put it up on the feed and link it back to you.' " The response was immediate.

To date, Henry has posted 448 cups, and a large majority of those were submitted by outside contributors. The success of "Coffee Cups of the World" made him realise that a great idea is no longer solely dependent upon him taking all (or indeed any) of the photographs. "I don't think "Coffee Cups of the World" would be anywhere near as big as it is if I'd been precious about it and never let it get out of my grasp."

Henry is currently working on a new project centered around photographing the staff meals prepared in popular restaurants. "The staff are the engine of a restaurant. How you treat the engine, what type of petrol or gas you're putting in there, is something that is a really interesting story to tell."

Even though this project is way more involved than "Coffee Cups of the World," Henry is convinced that once he’s defined the style and creative approach he'll be able to open up the "Staff Meals" project to other contributors around the world. "I really only want to create the first 20 or photos in the series. Then I want to tap other photographers whose work I really like and ask them to go into their own favorite restaurants."

HALF LIFE OF A NANOSECOND

Now I’m sure, dear reader, that at this point you're asking yourself: how the hell does Henry (or any of his contributors) make any money from these projects? The answer is, of course, that he doesn't — at least not directly. Projects such as "No Seconds," "Deep Fried Gadgets," and "Coffee Cups of the World" generate an entirely new form of digital currency: engagement.

In the white noise world of the web where the typical user’s attention span has the half-life of a nanosecond, engagement is notoriously difficult to generate even once, let alone consistently. Henry has proved that he is a deft master at creating engagement on a regular basis. That makes him tremendously valuable to brands who commission him to shoot their commercial projects. Which is not to say that makes landing those commercial projects any easier; there’s a lot of competition out there.

Back in his modelling days, Henry was once photographed by the legendary Richard Avedon, arguably one of the most important photographers of the 20th century. Today, Henry’s definition of a 21st century photographer would be considered heresy by a purist such as Avedon.

Today everyone’s a photographer. Back in the late 1940’s when Avedon started, photographers were only a tiny percentage of the population, yet they created the vast majority of the content that was seen by the public. Now, the public creates most of the content that’s seen by the public. — Henry Hargreaves

All of which means that photographers — and let’s face it most creative artists — simply HAVE to evolve. The landscape and the environment have fundamentally changed; it’s time to adapt or die.

Henry Hargreaves is the very embodiment of the newly evolved 21st creative artist. He not only produces his own work, but also creates and curates the channels on which his work — and the work of his contributors — is seen. His currency is engagement, and generating it requires an entirely new set of skills.

For we now live in the Digitassic Period. In this brave new world there is no value in being big, powerful and strong; we must be adaptable, flexible, and completely at home on the surface of this ever-changing digital ocean.

Like a sea otter.

This piece is one of a series featuring people who have enthusiastically embraced our rapidly evolving brave new digital world, and who have found new ways to reinvent, reimagine, or simply create an entirely new career in the process.

All Food & Still Life Photography ?Henry Hargreaves

Henry Hargreaves was photographed by James Bareham at Henry's studio in Williamsburg, New York.