In a recent interview to the website of the magazine Esquire Russell James talked about his new book “Angels”, his infamous shoot with Kendall Jenner, Sara Sampaio and the cover girl Candice Swanepoel.
Esquire: And having Candice Swanepoel on the cover was a victory for both James and the supermodel.
Russell: Swanepoel has given birth to two children in the last two years, and the Internet hasn’t always been kind to the 30-year-old regarding her body. James wanted to celebrate the phase of life she’s entered: “I shot her four weeks after the birth of her second child,” James says. “[She] is the ultimate hippie and just a beautiful soul. And, literally, I’ve had instances in my career where I took photographs of Candice in swimwear and then we had people saying ‘you shouldn’t retouch the women to look like that because it’s unattainable’—which I entirely agree with—and I’ve gone back to the photograph and there’s not not a bit of retouch on her. Sometimes Mother Nature just does what she does.”
