FILM

DEWEY NICKS: STRONG IS BEAUTIFUL

The Photographer Serves Up a Slice of the Biggest Names in Women’s Tennis

Santa Barbara-based photographer and filmmaker Dewey Nicks today presents the culmination of his year-long project for the Women’s Tennis Association’s Strong is Beautiful campaign, a dazzling short featuring a split-screen rally between the likes of Serena Williams, Li Na and current world number one Caroline Wozniacki. In all, 40 of the biggest names in the women’s game were documented in Nicks’s dramatic smoke-hued film. “It takes so many elements to reach the top of such a competitive sport as tennis––strength of character, incredible discipline and will power,” says Wozniacki. ”For me, Strong is Beautiful was able to capture the inner strength of players in a beautiful way.” Shot with a 600-frames-per-second Phantom EFX camera, in temperatures over 100ºF, the stars were captured fresh from battle in between rounds at tournaments across the US. Seeking to champion each player’s unique strengths, Nicks highlighted their signature strokes in slow motion. “There are things your eye doesn’t perceive,” he explains. “Once you slow it down you realize how extraordinary the shift of weight or position of the racket is.” Proclaiming it to be the best project he has ever worked on, the enthusiastic Nicks held nothing back, even taking a ball to the neck in the effort to get the perfect shot…       (read more and watch the film)

published Sept.1, 2011 on nowness.com

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SKAIST-TAYLOR: SELF CONTROL                                                        
Rock Progeny Theodora Richards Plays Puck Amidst the
Los Angeles Tree Line                                                                                      
Model Theodora Richards lets her spirit run wild in the woods above LA in Self-Control, a new film from acclaimed design dynamos Antonio Monfreda and Patrick Kinmonth. Daughter of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith, Richards drew on direct emotion and spontaneity to capture the “California eccentric” ethos behind new label Skaist-Taylor, the brainchild of longtime friends Gela Nash-Taylor and Pamela Skaist-Levy who previously co-founded monolithic loungewear brand Juicy Couture. “She’s like a butterfly,” the duo says of Richards, who they spotted dancing on her own by the pool at a wedding in the south of France. “There wasn’t even a contender, it was Theodora or bust.” Inspired by the textural breadth of the West Coast’s mountainous coastline, cathedral redwood forests and other exotic fauna, Skaist-Taylor’s debut pieces feature layers of hand-worked materials form Tinseltown artisans including richly dyed knits, skins, delicate bell-sleeve blouses and ornate hammered brass knuckle cuffs. Named Because the Sky is Blue after a Beatles lyric, the collection is an ode to…    (read more and watch the film)

published March 1, 2012 on nowness.com