Visiting a friend on Saturday in Harlem – stepped out of the subway on 116th Street into a street party for El Barrio on 3rd Avenue. People are partying, music blaring, street parade in full swing. Puerto Rican flags everywhere, family day in East Harlem.
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June 9th, 2013
Walking home this afternoon, camera in hand looking for locations for next week’s photo shoot, New York City is sizzling 90F – stop to watch a street ball pick up game happening on Bowery and Houston -guys asked me if I wanted to take a photo – yes! I just saw ‘Doin it in the Park‘ a great movie which explains the history of street basketball. The first time I came to NYC back in early 1980’s I got off the subway at West 4th Street, the smell of popcorn and piss in the air, stood fascinated watching the game on the 4th Street court aka ‘The Cage’ on a hot summer day. Welcome to New York.
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May 31st, 2013
Last thursday Niko’s video crew (below) followed me taking photographs on the streets of New York. We met a bunch of stylin’ teens on Houston St (above) and a guy with the biggest boom box on 125th st, we went to the peaceful Adam Yauch Park in Brooklyn, a seedy alley where I had shot Brandon Boyd, RZA etc, and a bunch of other locations. New York’s city streets are constantly changing and always a surprise.
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May 19th, 2013
In London to promote the Roger Daltrey Teen Cancer Trust T shirts that Ben Sherman made with my photographs of youth culture from back in the Brit punk days. Met the Islington Twins, featured on one of the T’s, at the Carnaby Street store with 2 of the kids who have been helped by the trust. One is now an artist the other studying at University. Good works
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May 8th, 2013
The punk show ‘Chaos to Couture’ at the Metropolitan Museum inspired New York Magazine to interview me about my experiences back in the seventies London punk days.
Punk brought an anti-establishment raw freshness to music, art and style. It was about change, the idea that people should question authority and do it for themselves. Coming from an art school background. I loved punk, 2 Tone, reggae. rockabilly, I liked soul music. I liked all kinds of music. At that time in England, the economy was really bad and the whole “No Future Punk” thing was going on. Kids would come out of school and they couldn’t get jobs. People were rebelling against that. To me, punk was an attitude, a life style, that changed everything in the UK.
FYI In 1994 London’s Victoria & Albert Museum had an exhibition called ‘Streetstyle: from sidewalk to catwalk’ which explored a similar theme to the Met show – they displayed a twelve foot high print of my photo of the Islington Twins at the entrance – the exhibition unpretentiously showed how street style, music and youth culture affect the world.
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May 4th, 2013
I will be teaching my ‘Youth Culture’ Portrait & Documentary Photography’ summer class again at ICP in July. Classes will be on Wednesday afternoons July 10 through August 7.
This year I taught a ‘Youth Culture’ workshop with Stella Kramer in Caracas- it made the New Yorker blog – we did 3 days of 12 hour classes – work !! the students took some great photographs.
Below is a photograph of a group of Mods at a festival in Scotland that I shot for the iconic style and culture magazine The Face back in the UK Punk days.
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April 24th, 2013
LL Cool J (Ladies Love Cool James) is releasing a new album ‘Authentic’ at the end of this month.
I took his first promo photograph (below) back in 1985. The then seventeen year old LL Cool J seemed shy when he arrived in my downtown studio with Bill Adler, the PR for Def Jam ( keeper of the great hiphop ‘Adler ‘archives) carrying a huge boom box . Two years, and many hits, later I photographed him again on the street (above) with Cut Creator, E Love and B-Rock for the British music weekly Melody Maker. He was still rocking the Kangol with bigger gold chains and more confidence. The New York Times claimed he radiated ” the charisma of the young Muhammad Ali”
These days he is one of hip hop’s great success stories, a movie actor and star of the TV series ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’. Looking forward to seeing the NY show at Roseland.
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April 21st, 2013
My shot of Milo Johnson is on the cover of the latest Jocks & Nerds magazine. First off I happen to think Jocks & Nerds is the best magazine covering style, music, attitude, culture out there today. I’ve been working for them for over a year now – the mag is beautifully designed, lots of black and white photography and in a truly arcane way – well you can’t buy it anywhere – it is a free quarterly only available in specialist stores like Paul Smith in London.
And then there is the legendary Milo Johnson, with whom I spent a really nice afternoon taking photos, wandering around his Harlem neighborhood, talking about music, Bristol, London, New York,Tokyo, magazines, photos, and other good things. A few days later he dropped off some music for me : his current CD ‘Return of the Savage’ in my opinion irresistible grooves, ‘The Wild Bunch’ great hip hop mixes, ‘Live at the Cat Club 1979’, and ‘Suntoucher’ are all on heavy rotation on my ‘jukebox’.
Have to say I love photographing people on the streets of NY – there is always so much going on. Standing under the overpass for the 1 train, at 125th street avoiding trucks, speeding cop cars and taxis, the odd passerby making a comment, breeze from the river and the noise of the trains overhead. It’s never boring.
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March 15th, 2013
Crash was painting this beautiful mural featuring Popeye on Houston and Bowery in New York City today. And there was legendary photographer Martha Cooper signing her book, being photographed by more legends Joe Conzo and Francisco Reyes II, good to see them all and meet graffiti artists Bio, Wane and BG183
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March 15th, 2013
There is a new genre of break dance and music in Venezuela – it is called Tuki. One day Marianna drove us to Petare a huge barrio clustered on a hill in the Palo Verde district. Across the street at the bottom of Petare is the Tuki school. There’s a courtyard, guys playing basketball, people hanging out watching the game, dance studios, graffiti and murals of Chavez painted on the walls.
‘Tuki’ is a music and dance style stemming from hard house and techno and it primarily came from the barrios of Venezuela.The music is a variation of “Changa” a Venezuelan slang word from the 90s meaning “House music”. The sound developed into a music style called Raptor House, which gave birth to Tuki. A dancer tells me ‘There was a perception that if you were Tuki you were a criminal but you’d rather see your son dancing than going out robbing’ . Tuki mixes Venezuelan street styles and pop culture – and just like hip hop came from people making ‘Something from nothing’
Respect to DJ Baba, His Majesty from the Raptor House Crew, DJ Yirvin, Elbert El Maestro, DJ Kike Abstractor, Branko J Wow, DJ De Ville, Parla Burgos, Joel Arritos, Andrews Guitiar-Locaotor, Anthony El Hiredero, Junior El Alucinante , Daniel Goillen Robots and many more.
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March 11th, 2013