Silver and Jet - Black and White Photography - People

I used to think Photography was really boring and had nothing to do with art, but then a pile of books fell on me in the Art section of the collage library and I saw a new side. My art tutors say that I should have my camera glued to me so I can record everything that inspires me, and for each project I had to have at least 30 decent inspirational photographs. I used to just photograph objects that I wanted to draw or bad pictures of dull landscape and cloud. I hated it. I can't remember the names of the books I looked at, just the front covers, but they helped me take things more seriously. There was a certain Photo of a man stud in a corn field with the sky behind him which I think about often, and that famous picture of the Beatles neck deep in a swimming pool; both had in common the idea of sinking into a simple backdrop, I haven't fully explored the idea yet.I was already getting into the Beatles, and since I've always lived in Lancashire they seem incredibly local, a fact I didn't notice when they where my baby-hood heroes. Stuff like Watership Down, Plague Dogs and Films About the Pre-Fab 4 hold a lot of North-English atmosphere and I was watching them over and over. You couldn't miss Stuart Sutcliffe and Astrid Kirchherr from this mental peak, and trying to find out more about them lead me to Arne Bellstorf'a Baby's in black. Naturally, being a comic artist and Beatles fan, I did a victory dance and bought the book immediately; I read it over Autumn, coincidentallythe time of year it was set. It was very inspiring to read a story where all the characters where Artists, and this also seamed like an Atmospheric, modern Gothic Fairy tail, the best part was it was all true. I know an old man who used to be an art teacher and I showed him what I was reading. He Said he went to Hamburg on a school trip around the same time the story was taking place, and that he recognized the locations; he wanted a longer look and said it made him feel nostalgic. Bellstorf's book introduced me to Voorman, Cocteau and reminded me of one of my High School Favs: Pollozzi. Imagine my surprise when that name came back to me, I have a print of his on my wall in my room.
I was thrilled by Astrid's pictures on line, I like all the 'Exis' but she's the one who inspired my Photos. I wanted my own Archive and more information so I brought a retrospective on Astrid. This was very thrilling too, I was able to learn all her influences and interests. I cut my hair and started dressing like her and watching those old French Films she talked about, and we already had the same taste in classical music. I don't read a lot of fiction so I'm not sure I'll bother exploring her favorite literature while there's so much fact to read about.

I really like these two Photo's by Astrid. They're took in the same location a year apart, John and George appear to be morning the Death/Disappearance of their friend Stuart, who's in the the first photograph, with the sun on his face and his paintings full of spirit and energy flaring out behind him. When I look at those photo's and read those stories, I fell like I'm watching ghosts. I always draw what I'm thinking about, so I ended up drawing a picture of Stuart.

"There's a lot of Character in Black and white Photography." said Dad. When I asked why that was, he said "The eye usually gets information from colour, it has too look elsewhere when the colour is gone." I think he was supposing this at the time but I agreed with him.
I would later read the opinion of Klaus Voormann; "The whole time we took photos it was black and white. There are very few good colour photos, most of the good ones are black and white." Klaus Voorman gave me some advice, with this photograph, of how to capture myself. And in return I made a A1 doodle attributed to him.

By taking Photographs of People I've learnt the value of them. A photograph seems to read a persons mind, If you pick too people who've never met and photograph them together you can see just that. You have all the time you want to observe them in that instant.


I took these Photo's of Isabella, you can tell she knows and trusts me, and spends a lot of time with me, from the way she naturally and comfortably composes herself from behind the camera. This is a record of Isabella's youth, she'd just turned 12, I dressed her in black and styled her hair. And I had a tree branch stuck to my sealing for a while as an experiment; I preferred it before it started to hang down to low, It felt like a forest was growing into my room. You can see this is heavily influenced by Astrid's Self Portrait.

Then take these Photo's of Magnus, you can tell he knows me, but personality wise he's more introverted and focused than Isabella. Isabella seems to be looking outward but Magnus seems to be looking inward. This is a record of Magnus's giant quiff, and kind of references Astrid's Rory Storm.

Now Look at these Photo's of Tristan. We'd only known each other for three days when I took these, and you can see both that he's a quiet person, and that he's unfamiliar with me, and unsure how to improvise, not wanting to disappoint me be improvising in a way I might dislike. I started talking to Tristan with this photograph in mind, because his fair hair made good contrast and linked to the white branches, and I found his profile reminded me of the Greek statues that inspired Astrid's teacher; Reinhardt Wolfe.

David Bailey; a Fashion photographer who also happened to capture Lennon McCartney, inspired a few earlier photo's of me and Isabella.

In photography I've discovered that the world is ever changing; in no two seconds dose the world look identical, but it's changing so fast most people can't see it. This is why people never look like themselves in photographs, and people change faster than anything in the world; a new expression or outlook, could emerge and take over at any second. This is why I like to photograph and draw faces and people. But this knowledge has been around for hundreds of years of course, it just took me 17 years to find it.




So that's how I learnt photography was no threat to art, it's a part of it. And here's some advice to my readers, which has nothing to do with this post: try going for a walk in the moonlight when you get the time. With company and without a torch, up a hill and far from the street lights. You'll discover the countryside doesn't go dark at night, it only changes colour. If you've never tried it, then there's a whole world out there you haven't seen.