Kid Acne

Kid Acne is a Sheffield based artist who started off designing album covers for record labels during the time that he was studying fine art and later graphics and illustrating. He produces commissioned work as well as graffiti on boarded up houses, making his own music and creating comic strips called ‘Zebra Face’.

He likes to listen to other people’s conversations as inspiration for his work as he illustrates them and then produced all of the images that he created in to a book, which told many peoples stories. More recently, he has been producing work for clubs designing and producing flyers for them to use as promotion for the club itself as well as specific theme nights as well as producing designs for Levi’s where his work was shown all around Europe. He has also designed t-shirts for Prada who took a lot of control over the content of the work as they had a clear idea of what they wanted whereas smaller companies allowed him to work more freely and design what he wanted to. He also designed a small collection of jumpers for friends and hand crafted before being shown in a gallery exhibition as a one off.

Although he is interested in fantasy art, he has also experimented with photography, which has taught him a lot of techniques and skills. All of his work is still hand drawn and scanned in to a computer, not produced digitally on a computer as he chose not to learn how to use Illustrator or Indesign, and has then been made in to books several times to help promote his work.

Acne’s favourite place to display his work is on the streets of Barcelona as it isn’t an offence and therefore you can’t get arrested for it. This lead to more commissioned work from the paint companies who asked him to design the paint cans for other artists to use. Helmut Newton, a photographer who loved to photograph naked women, as well as Roy Lichtenstein, influences many aspects of his work.

He produced a book cover, which made designers approach him to ask if the drawings could be made in to children’s toys, of which he agreed. He provided many drawings, which were then sculpted and made and presented in mystery boxes so as you didn’t know which toy you would be getting.

Recently he has been participating in life drawing classes so as to keep up and improve his drawing skills as well as to keep active and observation well in an area that he finds hard and challenging.

He has also collaborated with a photographer who asked him to draw small images over the top of his portrait and fashion images and were then published and exhibited in Paris where an Art Director approached him to as him to do a similar thing to some of him images.

He gets permission to graffiti his work on to people who own land or buildings by asking and being polite as well as showing samples of work to show them that you are serious about your work.

Man Ray

 Man Ray was an American born French photographer who was interested in developing his own ideas as well as being best known for his surreal sculptures. After spending over 35 years as a painter he decided to create a separate section of his life where he experimented with photography and used black and white film, one of the first people to use this medium of work and subsequently wanted to call his work ‘Rayograms’ however the name didn’t take off.

His first major work was a patch work image, neither a painting or photograph which was influenced by Picasso before he met with Marcele DuChamp and challenged ‘What Is Art’. Ray got in to photography in 1920 when he realised that he didn’t like the photos that other people took for him so he went on to buy a camera and took photographs for DuChamp, of both him and his work. From there he created ironic titles for him images as well as having his work printed in magazines across America and France.

When he first exhibited his work, people weren’t interested in how they were however people were amazed by his photograms, which were created by placing objects on to photographic paper and exposing it to light within a dark room and this became his speciality within art. He learned to control the contrast and tones within the picture and this was exhibited in many magazines including the quote “You have liberated painting people said.”

He later gave up painting to focus on his photograms which took the form of what he imagined in his mind and all of this took place within a hotel room where he had basic equipment but everyone wanted to use him as a photographer, including artists, friends and family and later went on to rent a studio and bought darkroom equipment to use within it. Vogue later bought his portraits and also commissioned him to photograph celebrities and was seen as the photographer for rich people in France and America, which included interior shots and landscapes.

The core of his portrait images included him setting up the lighting before the client arrived and asked them neither to smile or have their eyes open until he took the picture and sometimes had them hold an object to distract them, all of which was photographed in front of a plain or checkerboard background. He also liked to play with shadows setting up his camera 3 metres away from the subject and did not take more than 12 images per subject and composed and cropped the images carefully. He also added pencil marks on to the images to improve them as he understood what makes a good shot is the use of light and contrast. His images showed symmetry, which he showed a lot of within his images.

He also solarised his images which was by accident the first time as he exposed his images to light during their development, exaggerating the contrast dark and light and making the images appear mysterious however, it as a risky technique to use due to the chances of ruining the film.

There are strong lines within all of Ray’s photos as well as sophisticated lighting and showed this by going against the trend by photographing realism, being experimental with abstract while everyone else was photographing pretty things such as landscapes while he as pushing the boundaries of photography.

Rebecca Beinart

Rebecca Beinart

Rebecca Beinart is a Nottingham based artist who studied Fine Art at Nottingham University for 3 years and has always experimented with large-scale projects such as her final degree show where she created a treasure hunt within a market place. The objects she made were fortune cookies, which people would break open and reveal clues, which would lead them around the market however, it was also educational, as people would learn about the city or the market place in the process. This showed her willingness to work with a variety of disciplines, which she is still doing to date. Beinart then went on to do an MA in Art + Ecology in Devon which she loved as the course was based on experimentation and was taught by writers, artists and scientists as well as using photography to document live events which she can archive.

Beinarts Bristol project was commissioned work where she spent time walking along the route of a concealed river leading to the sea. She completed this route 7 times with a different person each time where she learned different facts, stories and information about the river which inspired her photograph of sketching a small part of a landscape and holding it up, placing it in to the real life landscape.

London gave Beinart another project to focus on where she went foraging for food out of the wild (not bins) and used them to create a meal with a group of people in a workshop using her self sufficient kitchen in the little trailer attached to her bicycle.

The Loughborough project in 2010 portrayed the worlds financial system and in reaction to this, she made live yeast out of flour and water and then used some of it to make bread and passed the rest on and instructed everybody to do this so as the product could spread worldwide.

The next project she did, she worked with her sister for 4 years and was based on the theme of Origination. They looked in to their own family history and family tree to find out about their ancestors and from this created a video. The video was based on a dinner party however there were no guests and the food gets eaten. All of this was filmed in the salt lands of Africa as they found out that their great great grandad sold salt when the water on the salt plains dried out.

Beinart then went on to look at how nature, manly plants and leaves, can be used as a type of medicine. This project was named ‘Poison’ and she looked at plants that were known to be harmful to humans but were still used as medicine. After gathering information and the history of making medicines she made a liquid that would be dangerous to drink but the interest of how you could make something dangerous from something so pretty was her inspiration.

Finally, the most recent project was a Twinning project between wasteland and how these sites are used, as ‘it is a place for your imagination because everywhere else is set in stone.’ Photographs were used to identify places that are not used, on waste or desert land where an old building may have been. The main part of the project used volunteers in England and Bali on wasteland where a photograph was taken every 50 steps to document the areas.

David Severn

     David Severn is a 21 year old Nottingham based photographer who grew up in Mansfield. He dropped out of his A levels months in to pursue a career in photography as he was receiving commissions during his studies which was earning him money and therefore also didn't attend University. Severn has produced two major current projects, taken on a 6 x 7 Viewfinder camera that uses Kodak Portra 400 film.
     The first of the projects is called 'Thanks Maggie' which is a personal tribute to his father who worked in mines for his whole life and to his grandfather who was a mine deputy and the pictures tell a story of the re-invented ex-colliery sites in and around Mansfield where he grew up. It also aims to show the town in it's post-industrial recovery with everything from old and abandoned machinery to stories from old and retired miners. One photograph shows the story of his father now that the mines have closed and he took up a new profession of performing as an Elvis impersonator before retirement several months ago. Another image shows the old mining houses that are still inhabited but are down to be demolished although some residents are refusing to move out and continue with every day life. The most moving photograph is a portrait of an ex miner who, after finding out about Severn's project, stood up in the middle of a cafe and recited poetry about a miner before sitting down and telling him a story about A mine Rescue worker who was called in to the aid of 3 miners who were in a collapsed mine shaft and as he rescued the trapped miners, the deputy was crushed under the debris and suffered from broken ribs, collapsed lungs, a punctured spleen and was eventually taken to hospital after being resuscitated on site where later in hospital, he 'died' a further two times and was once again successfully resuscitated before the doctors found a brain haemorrhage. The chances of survival were very small and the ex-miner telling Severn about the story asked whether he would have wanted to die due to all of the injuries or whether he would have held on, and after he answered he told him that it was a good thing that he held on as he was sitting here today telling Severn the story.
     The second project was based around the Travelling Showman Community which documented the lives of the people behind the major travelling fayre in Nottingham. Severn got access to the trailers of the workers who spend their lives travelling and setting up the fayre to work on. He learned about how they live and the way that they choose to marry in to others in the same business. His series of photographs are still being decided before being entered in to an exhibition in Nottingham.

Annie Leibovitz

     Annie Leibovitz is primarily a freelance commercial photographer who's life is her whole subject as she is constantly taking photographs on varying formats such as medium format and digital. Leibovitz describes a photographers life as "A life looking through a lens" which is how her life is as she tries not to say no to any jobs that she is offered which has gained her attention from high profile celebrities which she is so well known for photographing. She has travelled all over the word for work in the fashion and portrait industry with a large team of stylists, light technicians and assistants to help her set up each photograph and ensure that they are perfect. People have described her work as "daring" however this has always gone on to please producers and clients alike who love her style and creativity. American actors and politicians make up the majority of her cliental as well as other famous faces within the celebrity industry.
     Leibovitz des two sorts of work, both magazine work and personal pictures of her home life where she has to balance looking after her 3 children and her high demand in the photography industry which requires her to travel a lot. Her family describes Annie's camera as another member of the family as photography is and always has been a min focus of her life. Leibovitz began further education studying painting at San Francisco Art Institute until she did a module in photography within the course and instantly clicked and fell in love with it. The first photographers who she looked at when she began photography were Robert Frank and Cartier Bresson who had a huge influence on her work as she was just starting out and actually made her see that she could travel the world with a purpose from the inspiration of the two photographers she was looking at.
     In the late 1960's Leibovitz went to work for 'Rolling Stones' magazine which she had grown up with and still went to work for them. The publishers said that she had great imagination and it was the first time that she had worked with a team which she loved and working for the magazine was an amazing experience. She said that the people she worked with "shaped who she was and influenced her  massively" and was also given many opportunities because of her eagerness and enthusiasm towards photography and her work and this was proven to everyone else when she took the pictures of The Beatles as she had good observation. Working with writers and all different kinds of professionals gave Leibovitz experience and another perspective on the world in the form of documentary style photography including political images. She said that "The best photographs are those that are around you, you need to be familiar with your surroundings and subjects. You need to become a part of what is around you so you can take the pictures that you want to take naturally and with ease." She had good communication with all of her documentary subjects which developed her personal and social skills. These skills drew people towards her friendly character as they thought that she felt like 'one of the gang'. People years ago were more relaxed around photographers as they would spend a lot of time and hang out together, usually with celebrities or other famous people, most of the time which worked in Annie's favour as she was also one of the first female photographers doing this sort of thing however she had to be too careful not to get sucked in to other people lives that contained drugs and other destructive habits. This gained her life long friendships out o the many shoots that she did, especially dancers which she liked to photograph the most at that time.