Portraits « Archive of Attitude

Portraits

Keith Haring

In 1985 I was working for the New York Daily News Magazine. I got the job to photograph one of my favorite artists Keith Haring whose work I had admired on NYC subway and neighborhood walls. I went over to his downtown studio one afternoon.

Every bit of the studio was covered in art, cutouts, paintings, drawings, graffiti – it was an amazing place. And there was Keith, a lovely friendly man who happily posed for me for a couple of hours. He gave me a huge signed Free South Africa poster which has pride of place in my studio to this day. Look out for the retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum opening March 16.

“The East Village …was just exploding. All kinds of new things were starting. In music, it was the punk and New Wave scenes. There was a migration of artists from all over America to New York. It was completely wild. And we controlled it ourselves” KH in Rolling Stone interview 1989

February 28th, 2012

Whitney Houston

When I first came to NYC I used to do a lot of shoots for Mademoiselle magazine. One day I was chatting to the model who told me her mother was the singer Cissy Houston, her cousin was Dionne Warwick and her godmother was Aretha Franklin. My soul idols! The model became a famous singer herself, the most-awarded female act of all time, she sold over 170 million albums. RIP Whitney Houston

February 12th, 2012

Pete Townshend

Just found this photo I shot backstage at The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1981. Pete Townshend getting made up and Paula Yates in the background in a fluffy dress.

February 10th, 2012

NY Giants win Superbowl – MIA

The New York Giants made the Superbowl this year. I watched the game with some Auxiliary cop friends at the precinct – lots of Superbowl food: wings, pizza, tacos, chips – and hilarious commentary.

The NY Giants won! Go Big Blue!- there was a parade 2 days later – a great day out for New Yorkers

By the way there was a ridiculous media fuss about MIA flipping the finger during the Madonna half time performance. It is only rock n roll …take a look at this photo I shot of her a few years ago – it is just part of her thing – if you have fabulous fingernails you want to show them one way or another.

February 7th, 2012

Horseracing Monticello Raceway

It snowed upstate last week. The races at the Monticello Harness Raceway do not stop – no matter the weather. After training on the icy track in the morning the horses are steaming and the ‘drivers’ spattered with mud. The stable hands bathe the horses and cover them with blankets, the farrier comes by to change their shoes if necessary. The races start after midday. The Monticello Raceway opened in 1958, the track is half a mile. In 2006 there was a record handle (money wager for a race) of $1,432,217. HBO has a new series ‘Lucky’ about horse racing in Santa Ana and author Paolo Hewitt’s book ‘about some blokes in a pub buying a racehorse, has been made into a film. As for me, I have been wanting to take photographs at the track for a while, finally spent a day there shooting with my friend Gudrun -and need to go back to shoot more.

January 30th, 2012

Street photography

From 1990 – 1995 I worked on a street portrait project – whenever I had time I took the subway to a different neighborhood with my Hasselblad to take photos of the people and the hood. Last week I saw the Vivian Maier show at Howard Greenberg Gallery in NYC – she was a nanny that took street portraits in her spare time in Chicago in the 1950’s

The show prompted me to look through my own archive – although my images are only about 20 years old they have a ‘vintage reportage’ feel. Both of these are shot on 5th Avenue, the Guardian Angels at a Puerto Rican day parade (above) and Irish girls on St Patricks’s day (below). New York is such a great city to shoot people on the street.

January 5th, 2012

Kendra Morris

On Friday I photographed the singer Kendra Morris. She says she wants to live in an enchanted forest – her east village apartment is just that (see above).

She wrote all the songs on her debut album which is due out on Wax Poetics records in the spring 2012. Check out the video for her single Concrete Waves.

Kendra’s been singing for others her entire life, as a little kid in Florida she sang for her toys, in high school she sang with a gospel troupe (they sang for patients at a mental hospital one time), she sang in the Mall – the girl can really sing – she’s soulful – DJ Premier worked on Concrete Waves mix.

December 18th, 2011

Jose James

This weekend I photographed Jose James on the Bowery – he sings both jazz and hip hop (and has a great barber). Just back from touring the world with jazz luminary McCoy Tyner, he has recorded with DJ Giles Peterson, Taylor McFerrin, Basement Jaxx and many more – catch him performing at the Brooklyn Museum on December 15th.

December 6th, 2011

East LA Mexican Gang HM

Dashwood Books has published a monograph, small edition, of my photo essay on the East LA Mexican gang El Hoyo Maravilla. I spent a summer in the 1980’s photographing the gang. It was a very hot and I remember the constant buzz of the LAPD helicopters hovering over the area. ‘The Saint’ (above) had tattooed his gang name on his chest.

The gang members introduced me to their families and showed me the barrio. I was probably the first British person they had ever met

LA Happy Loca, LA Smiler Loca and LA Chrissy Loca (above) had great style, they would shave their eyebrows and draw a line high over the eye.

November 11th, 2011

Dexy’s Midnight Runners & GI Blythe

The posse rides again – I shot Dexy’s Midnight Runners at the Elephant and Castle shopping centre in London in 1981 (above). Some members of the original band brought together by Geoff Blythe just reunited to record at Blokhed Studio on Long Island. I just photographed the new band, G I Blythe (below) for their new CD which comes out Jan 12th 2012. Geoff played with Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band – which is one of the first albums I ever bought.

October 24th, 2011