Swapper – David Hurn Magnum Photographer

I chanced upon this on the BBC website. It is one of the most interesting articles I have ever read about the method and process of being a photographer. Hurn, one of the masters of documentary photography (although that sells him short as his work covered a far greater range) tells the story of how and why he became a photographer, his influences, mentors, and methods. I loved that he would find out when famous photographers were coming to the UK and then offer himself as a driver, guide and assistant. Or that he would find out where photographers he admired lived and would knock on their door and just introduce himself. This is an article you MUST read. It is long and full of images so give yourself time, you will be rewarded.

The Swapper is a story about the internationally-acclaimed British documentary photographer David Hurn; it is a story of a dyslexic, Welsh schoolboy written off as being “a bit thick” and an extraordinary “succession of bizarre coincidences” which would propel him into the ranks of photography’s elite.

A fixture of Sixties London and the Hollywood inner sanctum, his images of Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Sean Connery as James Bond, and the Beatles on the set of A Hard Day’s Night, became icons of the 20th Century.

But they are mere window dressing on a body of work so influential that recognition by him is now regarded as something of an anointing of careers.

 

David Hurn, the iconic Bond Imagehim is now regarded as something of an anointing of careers.

 

David Hurn is a luminary of Magnum Photos.

Magnum is the stuff of legends. Being invited to join its hallowed ranks – there are only 62 working members in the world – is notoriously difficult; think of it as a kind of SAS, Harvard, an Olympics gold medal of photography.

“I saw a pattern in how all the most respected photographers approached their work,” Hurn said, “and I believed that these basic principles could be passed onto aspiring youngsters.”

Hurn’s interest was encouraged and he set up the School of Documentary Photography at the Newport College of Art. It would become one of the most sought after courses in the UK and beyond.

The course was run with Hurn’s characteristic pragmatic approach.

There was to be no philosophical navel-gazing about ‘truth’ or the ‘theory of light’, it was about being on time, wearing good shoes – “If you’re walking around for hours taking pictures, you need them” – analysing the contact sheets of successful photographers – “It’s the best way to see how they think” – and, most importantly of all, getting a job.

“It was unbelievable,” Hurn says. “We used to have about 700 applicants for 15 to 20 places.

Jnr Wales ballroom dance championships, Bargoed 1973, Hurn

Pit pony handlers’ rest room, Neath Valley, 1993, Hurn

Book mark this link and go and read this wonderful story

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/david_hurn_photographer_swaps_magnum

Rankin launches social media campaign for World Heart Day

Rankin is one of Britain’s most famous and important photographers, he is the David Bailey of our times and in many ways as influential. He is a photographer who is at the top of his profession as his website shows.    He is also a man, a good man who cares about a wide range of issues and he is putting his considerable prowess and exposure behind a campaign for the “Heart for a Heart” campaign, created for World Heart Day

The “Heart for a Heart” campaign, created for World Heart Day

The “Heart for a Heart” campaign, created for World Heart Day, is a response to the fact that every three minutes someone dies from heart or circulatory disease in the UK. Its aim is to get people who spend their days tapping the heart symbol on Instagram and Twitter to instead design their own heart-inspired artwork and post it on social media on World Heart Day, on Friday. From The Guardian

Rankin by Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

“You have great artwork to inspire everybody,” he said. “Everyone can draw a heart, it’s one of the simplest symbols to draw and it works across all cultures and languages. The heart is the universal symbol. It can be romantic, it can be broken, it can be used on T-shirts to profess a love for a city. And, in recent years, it is synonymous with social media. The team and I wanted to make that mean something.”

“I am not an expert,” he said. “I just think it’s important to research these things for yourself. I am definitely a short, fat, very unhealthy bloke so if I can do a little bit, then everybody can do it. This is a fun way of going, ‘It’s important to look after yourself,’ and I like the idea of a social media conceit that is not just liking something.”

The photographer and the BHF are asking people to upload their artwork to social media on Friday using the hashtag #heartforaheart, tagging @TheBHF.

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with being a short, fat photographer but I take his point, getting healthy and supporting this good cause is important

So what will you do, will you ignore the request,  or will you upload some artwork to spread the word and share the love?

 

I am a goat

So the summer has come to an end, rain hits the window of my office and as I idle away a few minutes I find a series of images by Kevin Horan of goats. As I said in the title I am a goat, in Chinese Year Of, so I was intrigued, who would have thought goats could be such interesting and varied subjects?
‘This is a work about portraiture,’ says Kevin Horan, who is based in Langley, Washington. ‘What it does and how it works. I’ve made portraits of people for years and the chemistry of it is still mysterious. I tell my subjects that a good portrait is a collaboration between photographer and subject. But how do you collaborate with a goat? A goat you’ve just met?’

Bella

Lily #4 ‘They’re treated as if they were customers in a small-town photo studio’

Jake #1 ‘While the idea was to bring farm animals into a classical portrait studio, the studio actually goes to them – it takes a couple of hours to set up lighting and backdrops’

Ben ‘My first subjects were the sheep across the lane from me. But that didn’t work out. I then went to a small goat dairy, and a couple of goat fanciers, who were more cooperative’

Kevin Horan is an artist based in Langley, Washington, USA. He is working on projects which look at animals as people, people as animals, and the planet as a very small place. His pictures are reality-based, and he enjoys finding the amazing revealed in the ordinary. His work from Chattel was selected for the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 in 2014.

You can see more of his work which includes pigs here Kevin Horan