The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is this weekend. The Queen will float down the Thames in the Royal Barge followed by a flotilla of 1,000 boats. And on Monday there will be a jubilee concert with pop knights such as Paul McCartney, Elton John and Cliff Richard. ….errrm .. rock on Her Majesty.
It’s a bit different from the heady punk days of yesteryear when ‘Anarchy in the UK’ ruled the waves.
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May 31st, 2012
RIP Adam Yauch aka MCA, one of the founders of the Beastie Boys. The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just two weeks ago.
I shot this photo of the Beastie Boys for Rolling Stone in 1985 – they arrived with their producer Rick Rubin who had signed them to his label Def Jam. Their songs like “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)” and “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” changed the world of hip hop.
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May 4th, 2012
I am teaching a workshop on Youth Culture, documentary and street photography at the International Center of Photography in NYC this July. Everyone is welcome – film and digital
I’ve been documenting street style and youth culture ever since I first spotted the ‘Islington Twins’ in the school yard of the college I was teaching at in London back in 1977. My blog is the Archive of Attitude and to my mind street style and youth culture express just that – it is about the style and attitude (see my photo of ‘Mod Girl London 1976’ above)
Youth culture and street styles are important in the history of photography – photographer’s have been documenting them since August Sander first took photos of the working population in Germany in the late 19th Century, Danny Lyon shot bikers in America in the 1960’s and Jamel Shabazz shot the hip hop kids he saw on the street in New York in the 1980’s. Today photographers like Bill Cunningham at the NY Times and the Satorialist document current fashion on the street.
These days when every face on magazine covers looks ‘perfect’ – not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle – it is even more important to document and appreciate the amazing people we see everyday on the streets.
I shot this photograph of Run DMC and posse on the street where they lived in Queens in 1984.
Occupy Wall Street demonstration 2011
Claude Serieux in Paris 2012.
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April 21st, 2012
News today of yet more innocent people killed in a shooting at a college in CA, seven dead. Trayvon Martin, an innocent student, was shot in FLA on his way home from the deli (still no arrest of the self confessed shooter). A Toulouse gunman opened fire at a children’s school last month and admitted to killing seven people. Lat year in Norway a gunman shot more than eighty people at a summer camp. Shootings are an everyday thing these days, look at these school shooting numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#2010s_-_Present
Andre Charles painted this mural on Houston Street the day that Tupac was shot in 1996 ‘Live By The Gun – Die By The Gun’. If people are permitted to have lethal weapons they will use them.
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April 2nd, 2012
Finding a kid for the cover of the Stiff Little Fingers single from their first album ‘Inflammable Material’ on Rough Trade Records was not easy. I decided that it should be a tough kid from a council estate or some such and went to South London to search for him. After hours of walking the streets I spotted this kid, he was perfect. It was getting dark and I asked him if I could take a photo. Later when the single came out his mum called up to ‘have a few words’ with the record company … but it all got sorted.
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February 10th, 2012
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.
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January 5th, 2012
In the post punk years around 1980 on there was a turn around in style in the UK. The punks, mods, rockers, skins and 2 Tone kids were still flaunting their looks but something else was happening – people had perhaps grown tired of the ripped T, bin bag, army surplus rebel look and wanted to dress up and look sharp.
Suddenly groups like Blue Rondo a la Turk featuring my friend Christos (on right in my photo above he was wearing a pink Zoot suit! and is still one of the best dressed men to this day), Spandau Ballet, and individuals like Steve Strange (top photo walking in Covent Garden) were paying obsessive attention the way their clothes were made and their suits fit.
They started clubs like The Blitz, The Wag the BeatRoute to play the new music, dance and check out each other’s gear.
Graham Smith, a lad from Edgware in North London, shot the emerging London club scene that rose from Punk’s ashes. Check out his photos in the new book ‘We Can be Heroes‘, with text by Chris Sullivan (on left my photo above). Instead of dealing with the old school publishing industry, in true punk style it is self published.
As for myself, although never too good with an iron, I still managed to pull together an outfit – vintage 50’s American clothing, trousers from PX, even the odd bit of Vivienne Westwood – it was important.
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December 5th, 2011
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.
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November 11th, 2011
Last night at the Apollo in Harlem George Clinton aka ‘Dr Funkenstein’ founder of Parliament Funkadelic was honored with an all star tribute featuring Bootsy Collins, Sheila E, Bernie Worrell, Nona Hendryx, Vernon Reid, Ray Chew, Paul Shaffer (who according to a source was considering wearing a diaper, in honor of Gary Shider, but ended up sporting just the diaper pin) and many more.
Bootsy Collins celebrated his 60th birthday by taking a walk across the audience.
Bootsy’s gorgeous wife Patti wearing peace sign eye wear
Bernie Worrell ‘s solo was beautiful. An all around ‘moog’ genius who studied at Juilliard, he has been compared to Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix and Duke Ellington
Cornell West jumped onstage to share the love. Obviously ‘The Funk Will never Die’.
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October 26th, 2011
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.
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October 24th, 2011
