Last week, Ethan James Green was announced as the photographer of the 2025 Pirelli Calendar and has been full steam ahead ever since. Green trained his lens on some of the world’s most coveted names in fashion and culture, continuing the project’s tradition of pairing leading figures from across the zeitgeist with esteemed photographers. The full list of confirmed talent includes Simone Ashely, John Boyega, Hunter Schafer, Hoyeon Jung, Padma Lakshmi, Jodie Turner-Smith, Vincent Cassel, Elodie Di Patrizi, Connie Fleming, Ethan James Green himself, Martine Gutierrez and Jenny Shimizu.
After the final shooting date, Green flew to London to share a behind-the-scenes look at the calendar’s production. We met Green in a west London hotel suite, where he was fighting jet lag and guiding us through the project with warm humility. Relaxed and cross-legged, wearing a brown shirt unbuttoned to the chest, he sat across a wooden coffee table crammed with glossy prints that occasionally reflected the light coming through the window.
Getting the gig
Green’s journey into photography began in front of the camera when he signed with Ford Models and moved to New York, where he starred in campaigns for Calvin Klein and posed for Steven Meisel. Since moving to the other side of the lens, Green’s commercial work has focused primarily on the fashion space for brands such as Alexander McQueen, Fendi, Helmut Lang, Miu Miu and Prada.
Green’s first book Young New York was published in 2019 and documented a collection of portraits of friends and collaborators in downtown NYC that explored the scope of queer identity. This year, his second book, Bomb, subverted the idea of a stereotypical bombshell by asking his models to style and pose themselves. This approach makes his models comfortable in front of the lens, allowing Green to capture a momentary closeness that freezes the moment in time – all skills he brought to The Cal.
His work in fashion and published work helped put him on Pirelli’s radar when the company was looking for a photographer for its next calendar. “They got in touch in January. It started with Pierregiorgio (Del Moro), who is Pirelli’s casting director, and I’ve worked with him a lot in fashion. He just texted me and asked, ‘What do you think about Pirelli?’ I said, ‘Pirelli is amazing!’ He was like, ‘Okay, cool, I’m working with them and they’ll reach out to your agent,'” he told us.
What was in the calendar?
The Cal was Green’s first photoshoot for a calendar. He brought his expertise from fashion and portrait photography to the project, shooting in a square format this time to ensure it still felt “very calendar-y.” He combined his trademark candor for The Cal with his encyclopedic knowledge of early ’90s moments, like Herb Ritts’ “A Homage to Women,” which featured a stunning cast of supermodels shot by the legendary portrait photographer. “I wanted to do something sexy, something classic. I love Richard Avedon’s studio photos in the ’90s and Herb Ritts’ beach photos in the ’90s, so I wanted to do both and have that return to sexiness.”
Photographing celebrities
This year’s calendar is packed with muses, models and megastars including Hunter Schafer, Connie Fleming and John Boyega, who were photographed at Miami’s Virginia Key Beach Park. Before the calendar’s official release, Pirelli gave a sneak peek of the release with a behind-the-scenes look at the shoot. And when you see Hunter Schafer staring into the camera in a sheer dress and Vincent Cassel posing while lying half submerged in the ocean, it’s going to be a blast.
But unlike other photographers, Green approaches great talent with a creative distance that sets him apart from his peers. This distance stems from his childhood in Michigan, far removed from pop and celebrity culture. He openly admits this. “When I photograph a famous person, I usually don’t do any research, I photograph them. After that, I go see the film or watch the music. I usually really enjoy it and it’s fun to step back in that way. Because I grew up so far away from it, I didn’t feel the need to really immerse myself and maybe that distance helps,” he told us.
Despite this separation from his subjects, Green maintains a close relationship with his collaborators, who have helped him build a greater sense of trust with his subjects. “With something like this, where people are naked and in a very vulnerable state, collaborating has allowed each person to feel more comfortable. I show them what we’re doing, and I want it to be something where the subject walks away, looks back, and thinks, ‘I like that image.’ That’s always really important to me,” he told us, before concluding his statement by saying, “Collaboration is how we get there.”
Yes, Green may be unfazed by the world of celebrity, but is he taking the 2025 Pirelli Calendar shoot lightly? Not a chance. “It’s a very big moment for a photographer to be asked to do this and it’s been a minute since I’ve reached a milestone like this, which feels like a whole new level. I’m very excited about the project.”
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