Don McCullin

For as long as I can remember I’ve been obsessed with Don McCullin. The bleak, black and white photography of this melancholic man got under my skin somehow and, even now, I have goosebumps just thinking about some of the confrontational images he created. When I was younger I wanted to be just like him but I soon found out I didn’t have what it took to be, as the legendary Harold Evans described him, ‘a conscience with a camera’.
I have two earlier books of his ‘Perspectives’ and ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ that are like truth seeking missiles in my photographic world – and I take them with me wherever I go.
Throughout time and trends his work endures and this month McCullin – an independent film documenting the life of Britain’s greatest living photographer of war and so much more, is released.
I can’t wait to see it…..

Astray

recent stills from photo shoot for Astray Clothing London

Flaming Youth

FLAMING YOUTH – a book of photographs by Glendyn Irvin from Puberty Blues.
I’ve been following this mega talented image maker since I first saw Cracker Bag and thereafter the brilliant Playground so I was excited to share his latest project – in his own words & photographs and available here

I started documenting the making of the show from the start. Like visual notes the photographs became part of the process of discovery of how the series would look and feel. From casting and location scouting to scene ideas, documenting a colour or how the light looked at a certain time of day. What worked, what didn’t. The people, places and things that make up the texture and tone of Puberty Blues.

Most of the time the photos were taken in the moments just before ‘Action!’ was called. Or in-between ‘takes’ to maintain focus and momentum throughout the stop / start rhythm of shooting. That small amount of precious time just before the cameras roll. I would sometimes take a quick shot just as that moment of transformation would take place, from ‘actor’ to ‘character’.

Sometimes the photo would become the key on how to shoot a scene. A way of trying to find the essence, or a reduction to a single image. An attempt to find stillness in and amongst the chaos of a film shoot.

Faces of Addiction

Faces of Addiction by Chris Arnade is a personal photography project of such raw honesty and integrity that the portraits literally speak for themselves. The fact that Arnade is an ‘amateur’ only adds emphasis to my belief that great photographers are not pre-determined by their commercial markets so much as driven by their passion to produce arresting images no matter what
As Arnade says, these are “the stories of addicts in New York City – as they tell them to me. I am not a journalist,
I don’t verify, I just listen….Its very easy to ignore others. By not looking, by not talking to them, we can often fall into constructing our own narrative that affirms our limited world view. What I am hoping to do, by allowing my subjects to share their dreams and burdens and by photographing them with respect, is to show that everyone, regardless of their station in life, is as valid as anyone else”