Almost 20 years ago to the day, a teenager made an unwise camera choice* to record what he was experiencing in case he might later forget. In reality, the choice was really to consciously notice the world around him and single out the bits that mattered – starting immediately with the things he was involved in, which at the time was the crazy period of growing up known as ‘university’. He’d used the family camera before, of course – for the obligatory vacation and landmark images and with the admonition not to ‘waste film on pictures without people in them.’ University represented freedom and ..read more

Presenting today a mixed bag of wimmelbild (fittingly, some of which is actually from Germany) and general urban patchwork accumulated over centuries – and in some cases, quite possibly millennia. There is something about seeing the evolution of a city in a single place that speaks volumes to the traditions and values of a society. The elements that survive tell us as much about changing priorities as the ones that don’t; often it seems that cultures have to come full circle in order to fully appreciate what they have. From a photographic standpoint, the sheer density of older European c ..read more

Whilst the previous post was all about ambiguity in groups, crowds or simply physically larger and visually more dense situations, with the barest hint of narrative (if any) dictated by gross body language – this set focuses more closely on couples or a single individual, thus leaving more room for expression and gesture. It is more of an emotional set that suggests causality from a detail or gesture frozen in mid-motion rate than juxtaposition. Though to be honest, the differences are perhaps not as stark as I make them out to be, even if during the curation process the images naturally sepa ..read more

I make no claims to have any idea what any of these people are doing – and judging from how some of them look in certain locations, I suspect neither do they themselves. But that’s okay, because it makes for the kind of open-ended storytelling photography that allows us to fit our own narrative to things, and thus manage to satisfy a wider variety of audience expectations. In my previous work of this kind, I’ve always tried to provide some sort of serving suggestion for the narrative; in these sets, I’ve deliberately stayed away from that as far as possible and focused on curation for the sak ..read more

I’ll be the last person to pretend to understand the modern art housed within, but the architecture at Fondazione Prada was spectacular – partially rejuvenated, partially new buildings by Rem Koolhaas, and a very sensitive mix of hypermodern and classical Italian. The historical references to arches, stucco and what I think of as typically Italian tile roofs are all present; but modern volumes and spaces are added both above and below ground to house the exhibit and work spaces. I’m not entirely sure about the gilded palazzo, but I have to admit it does feel very much in keeping with the rest ..read more

“Creativity” is a term we hear increasingly thrown around and applied to things that perhaps are both not obvious immediate recipients, and simultaneously perhaps the most needing of such treatment. Ask any non-creative person what they think it means, and immediately unstructure, randomness and perhaps some whimsy come to mind. If you ask a creative person, especially a prolific one, it’s probably the complete opposite. I’m going to take a balanced attempt at tackling this from the point of view of a creative person forced to be uncreative for a good chunk of my career, and who’s now finally ..read more

Continued from parts I and II In the early days, there really wasn’t that much difference between the race cars and the road cars; often one and the same would be seen at Monza, Le Mans or Spa or the other endurance road courses. The predecessor to Formula One differed a little since those were purpose-built single seaters. But for the most part, there wasn’t anything like the massive differences we see today – even a high end sportscar like a 911 GT3 is still quire different from the actual GT3s that go racing; to say nothing of touring cars, NASCAR and rally – those are basically completely ..read more

Continued from parts I and II In the early days, there really wasn’t that much difference between the race cars and the road cars; often one and the same would be seen at Monza, Le Mans or Spa or the other endurance road courses. The predecessor to Formula One differed a little since those were purpose-built single seaters. But for the most part, there wasn’t anything like the massive differences we see today – even a high end sportscar like a 911 GT3 is still quire different from the actual GT3s that go racing; to say nothing of touring cars, NASCAR and rally – those are basically completely ..read more

Continued from part I I think of this set as being full of very distinctive details of a particular era – yet there is crossover and overlap and transition between them. Even though the continuity is present, there’s a very clear looping back to the historical cars after the late 80s/ early 90s – at this point we see a divergence. The exotics retain the volume of recent vehicles, but gain the curves, lines and surfacing of 40-50 years prior. The mass vehicles just start looking a little melted and lose that sharp definition of the Bertone-era; where Alfa is in the present day is yet another m ..read more

I had the opportunity to spend a day photographing the cars at the Museo Storico Alfa Romeo just outside Milan. It wasn’t just the famous cars that were interesting – there you already sort of knew what to expect, so it was more a case of finding interesting angles. The real treasures were the ones you didn’t know about – the lines, the curves, the detailing all speaking to a time when a lack of mass production and regulation allowed for a lot more variety. Can you imagine a car that wasn’t symmetrical left to right today, due to hand beaten panels? Or with red front lamps? Coming from a time ..read more