My sophomore year of high school, I took Intro to Photography. There was no more thought put into this decision than simply wanting to take film and actually know what aperture and shutter speed meant. The class became my safe haven, my period directly after lunch where I could develop film, listen to music, and discover all the aspects of photography I had studied anxiously from the sidelines. I mention this class, not only because I like to brag about the fact that I have developed film before, but because of a specific class project we did — a presentation relating to a famous photographer and their work. I chose Mr. Slim Aarons.

The project, pretty straightforward in its essence, asked us to present on a photographer we were inspired by, but I have a knack for immersing my entire mental capacity into things I find interesting, which at the time was Slim Aarons. His work became my entire world. His pieces felt like modern day surrealist paintings, transporting me to this luxurious space where the sun was always shining and everyone was grinning ear to ear. His pieces felt like stepping into a real-world La La Land.

Growing up with a mom in interior design, the staple coffee table book was something I encountered on a day to day basis. No matter where I lived, there would be an array of every kind of subject plastered onto a massive book placed directly onto our coffee table. As a kid, I never understood the allure of a massive book, but today, I can’t get enough of them. One day in high school, my mom came home from a job and mentioned all the fun little items she was staging in her clients home, one being a coffee table book of Slim Aarons’ work. This name struck absolutely no bells, even though it was probably the coolest name I had heard up until that point in my life besides Lucky Blue Smith (shoutout Nara). My mom explained his work, and immediately, I was hooked — I spent the next few hours obsessing over his photographs, searching the web for any that I could print out for my room.

George Allen Aarons, born in 1916, was an American photographer who leveraged his career by photographing iconic celebrities and socialites of the mid-20th century. The nickname “Slim” soon accompanied him due to his tall stature (6’4”) and thin frame — and it just stuck. Enlisting in the US military at the age of just 18, his photography career began through photographing the heartbreaking scenes and landscapes during WWII across Northern Africa and Europe. The journalistic style of photography Aarons embarked on during the war weighed heavily on him, and at the close of WWII, Aarons shifted his career into another area of photography — high society. He famously stated, “I owed myself some easy, luxurious living. I wanted to be on the sunny side of the street.” And that’s exactly what he set out to do.

Aarons just had this innate gift to capture magical moments into stills that still somehow had a feeling of movement and life to them. His images showcased marvelous settings across the world, featuring lavish over-the-top scenarios seemingly straight out of a movie. Imagine a Salt Burn type setting but in 1950. His work felt surreal, though real, space-age yet vintage, and represented an aura of poise that felt inconceivable. Aarons captured his subjects as they were, drawing even more attention to these individuals’ insanely grand standards of living.

There is always a sense of mystery involved with the idea of “high society” — and Aarons work is so renowned due to the sheer fact that he was one of the first to get an inside glimpse into these worlds we consider so outlandish. The vibrancy and funky nature of his images is what initially drew me in from the get-go, and to this day, I still consider his career one of my favorites in the photography industry.

Slim Aarons, Once Upon A Time

Slim Aarons

Slim Aarons, La Dolce Vita

Though Aarons has been celebrated with numerous coffee table books, ranging from publication to publication, there are still moments where I encounter someone who has never caught wind of the great, Slim Aarons, and I get my shining moment to yap all about him. If you know and love him, consider this piece and friendly little reminder of his truly remarkable life. And if this is your first time ever uttering the name Slim Aarons, then please enjoy the array of photographs I include below (some of my personal favorites).