After kickstarting her photography career with shooting the Spring 2017 Versus Versace campaign, Gigi Hadid answered questions on how and why she got behind the camera in the first place—the model has actually been taking pictures since she was a child. And now, the budding image maker is already hanging with the pros—literally. In her latest cover story, for The Daily Front Row, Hadid poses alongside renowned fashion photography great, Mert Alas.
The 21-year-old reveals that her mother, Yolanda Hadid, is the one who inspired her to start taking pictures. She said of her mom:
"During her time as a model, she was always shooting her own stuff. She has some amazing behind-the-scenes photography of traveling the world. When she quit modeling when Bella and I were born, there was a camera around all the time. We were always being photographed, and we could always play with our mom's camera."
That exposure became a full-grown hobby for the model as she grew up. She even started a mini photo-selling business (complete with her own website) in her teens.
"I was a competitive horseback rider, and starting at 14 or 15, in between my competitions, I would take pictures of my friends' horses and sell them for $10. I would print them myself. I loved it. I used to have hadidphotography.com. It's now just a locked webstarter."
Now, photography is more than just hobby, it's a form of therapy and stress relief for Gigi. She snapped Polaroids during fashion week so she "wouldn't go insane." "Creative people always need to be creating, regardless of whether they are working or not," she said.
Hadid landed her first major photography gig, shooting the Spring 2017 Versus Versace campaign, out of coincidence. She was "hanging with Donatella" when she showed her pictures of her boyfriend Zayn Malik that she took on her phone. "She said how she loved how raw it was," the model explained. "She said she wanted me to shoot the Versus campaign in that feeling of hanging in a hotel room, drinking, having room service, playing games, playing guitar."
And that she did.
