Mario Testino brings his peerless photographic eye to imbue luxury and style on the whisky brand’s fifth Masters of Photography series.
Before Testino there was Albert Watson, Rankin, Annie Leibovitz and Elliott Erwitt – all undoubted Masters of Photography, and each with a distinct style and different ideas of how to bring to life the brand’s foundation stones.
Each photographer has been tasked to interpret the six pillars of the whisky brand: Spiritual Home (Spiritual Home; Easter Elchies House, built in 1700); Curiously Small Stills (for a rich fruity spirit); Finest Cut (using only 16% of the final distillation); Exceptional Oak Casks (the brand spends more per cask than any distillery); Natural Colour (from the oak casks); the Macallan itself. Mario Testino brings a distinctly luxurious and fashionable eye to the work. (Compare his to Elliott Erwitt’s more eccentric and traitional style).
‘Macallan’ is most likely derived from two Gaelic words -‘Magh’ meaning a fertile piece of ground and ‘Ellan’, meaning ‘of St Fillan’, an Irish born monk who travelled widely in Scotland spreading Christianity during the eighth century.
There is also a limited edition production of The Masters of Photography: Mario Testino Edition single malt – a marriage of six different casks to create one exceptional whisky. There are only 2,000 bottles worldwide, and only 80 available in Singapore.
Shot in Beijing, in a former palace near the Forbidden City Tian’anmen Square, each photograph captures the vibrancy and luxury of the Macallan world (note the use of colours), infused with subtle cultural allusions.
More about the Macallan Master of Photography here.
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