I came across a set of seascapes by Giles Revell recently, and with the bad weather that’s hit the UK this week, they seem that touch more relevant. A stark, well composed landscape is one of those things that makes a very successful photograph and the Londoner’s misty-sensibility only confirms the fact.
Jake Singer is an artist predominantly interested in architecture and how people interact with built space. Just on the side of this practice, he’s also knocking out some great fashion photography. Describing this work as “just really fun and casual,” and mostly projects he does with friends, Jake’s photographs combine high production values with wit that plays up the “blue steel” tradition so prevalent in collection lookbooks.
Lark Foord photographs details, whether they be the back ends of rusty old bangers, suburban hedgerows or the textures of buildings and street furniture. His project Parts is like a visual record of the glory days of the automobile industry. There are station-wagons, hand-painted hoods depicting beach scenes and love-worn racing numbers, matte gold paint and a general air of the 70s.
We’ve been big fans of photographic duo Baker & Evans since their inaugural collaborations in 2011. There were zines with encouraging quotes surrounded by men dressed in foliage, celebrations of wet-look hair gel and more recently, photographs of Lernert & Sander’s mayonnaise dumbbells. You’d think after that run they’d have to retire, but Baker & Evans just keep pulling great work out of their seemingly bottomless bags.
Dutch artist and illustrator Jordy van den Nieuwendijk is a 24-carat It’s Nice That favourite. We’ve featured his work multiple times (both online and in print), he’s spoken at our events, heck he’s even been for lunch at our studio (he had a baked potato).
We first posted Erin O’Keefe’s work almost exactly a year ago. Since then, the New York-based artist and architect has been producing more optical illusion-based wonders. Erin’s architectural practice, and the inherently formal considerations of spatial perception involved, informs the distorted perspectives of her photography and 3D collage.
Architectural photography can often feel elitist at best and stuffy at worst, so imagine our delight to come across this new book Down the Long Driveway, You’ll See It, by New Zealand-born, Montpellier-based photographer Mary Gaudin.
Day-to-day Francois Visser is the kind of photographer you’ll find with his lens trained on scantily clad, elfin adolescents, such is the nature of fashion photography. But his carefully-composed portraits have a sensitivity that many newcomers lack; a substance-before-style approach that denotes a mature understanding of his medium.
This year’s open submission Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize was awarded to London-based photographer David Titlow for a photograph of his toddler son. The photograph, if you haven’t seen it, is a hazy, Vermeer-esque image of David’s hungover friends on the morning after a party, passing his new son around in the cold light of the Swedish sun. Back on UK soil, David’s work couldn’t be more different. He seems to be something of a darling of the glossies: snapping models and celebs for the likes of Vanity Fair, Esquire, Nylon and Marie Claire. His impulsive, confident shots are a far cry from his tender, voyeuristic personal work – which is why we wanted to ask him a few questions about what he does. Here he is…
The annually ubiquitous words “resort collection” evoke whiffs of Campari and orange, sunset-lit terraces in The Hamptons, a suitcase of freshly pressed, pastel daywear. That’s why we were rather surprised when New York Magazine’s fashion branch The Cut decided to commission Asger Carlsen to help show off 2015’s sartorial offerings. Asger is a Danish artist living and working in New York, and is the go-to man for distorted, nightmare-like monochromatic images that have the power to send bolts of nerves fleetingly through your teeth.
I don’t mean to show off, but I’ve met quite a few Americans, and I often ask them about the creative scene in the USA. More specifically I’m interested in whether it’s possible to elucidate any recurring themes or general characteristics in such a huge, diverse country. Most of them, bluntly but politely, say that no, no it’s not. What a ridiculous question. Get out my car. So to study American creativity is actually to study its individual outposts, and that’s where Wesley Verhoeve’s One Of Many project comes in.
Cool Hunting used to be a place of current art and design, expensive watches, exclusive booze bottles, leather mountaineering accessories and cars you will never be able to afford. Nowadays it’s a place of exotic content nestled snugly in a brand new redesign that’s pretty ahead of the game. Recently it’s been championing the work of an American photographer called Arthur Drooker, largely focusing on his series entitled Conventional Wisdom. Arthur is something of a curiosity-lover, and his wild, weird series are the visual result of him being unable to resist the pull of “Bronies,” ventriloquists, clowns, re-enactors and taxidermists.
We featured Marco Kesseler’s This Land Of Ours That Is Not Ours series last summer. The project forms a portrait of the street clashes in Kiev between government forces and the pro-European movement, documenting the tensions that led up to the riots, seemingly mundane domestic details and the broader architectural setting of the uprising.
Remember back in July 2013 I said that photographer Till Janz was making a pretty impressive name for himself in the portrait photography business? Well, not to toot my own trumpet, but look who he’s been shooting lately. A-list Hollywood filmmaker Spike Jonze, check; king of the modern art world Olafur Eliasson, check; exclusive editorials for 032c, covers for Zeit Magazin and campaigns for Nike; check, check, check. It’s also worth mentioning he only got seven minutes for all those shots of Mr. Jonze. Anyway, needless to say the boy’s done good, and it’s great to watch him progress into the big leagues. Toot toot!
