NOUGHTIE NIGHTLIFE 1
NOUGHTIE NIGHTLIFE
Noughtie Nightlife Introduction
All dressed up and everywhere to go Focusing on the fashion, faces and attitudes of cult London club nights, Noughtie Nightlife celebrates the first decade of the new century through the images that tell the story, taken by the photographers who were there. As an LCF research funded project it demonstrates the power and importance of nightlife club photography as a medium in itself, documenting youth culture, style and attitude. Providing both a recent retrospective and a contemporary archive of 21st century youth culture and style, it focuses on the influence of music and clubbing on fashion and vice versa. The collection of images that have been collated will go on to be archived at London College of Fashion for future generations of students studying across the six colleges of University of the Arts London. In Ted Polhemus’ 1996 street style manual, Style Surfing: What to Wear in the 3rd Millennium, the post‐modern looks of the day were defined as beyond categorization: “I just surf right out of my wardrobe, becoming whoever or whatever I want to be. I am a figment of my own imagination.” Taking this statement as a basis for exploration, Noughtie Nightlife documents the hybrid mix ‘n’ match style tribes that emerged through the multitude of music, fashion‐dress up and performance‐ influenced nights, such as Kash Point, Nag Nag Nag, Trash, Anti‐Social, All You Can Eat, Durrr, Smash & Grab, Boombox, Circus, secretsundaze and Caligula. The scene was vivid, bold and daring, inclusive of a rich diversity of social classes, ethnicities, sexualities and backgrounds and influenced some of London’s most notable fashion talent of the last ten years, with the University of the Arts London providing a breeding ground for the designers, promoters, DJs, protagonists and clientele that frequented and produced these innovative Noughties club nights. Plundering the styles and trends of yesteryear, today’s youth cultures are easily the most affluent in terms of disposable income and access to information. With the revolutionary rise of the Internet from the late 1990s, trading and sharing of ideas and influences became as easy as the click of a button. The digital revolution enabled everyone to capture images and video and paste the results straight onto social networking sites such as MySpace, You Tube and Facebook. It was suddenly possible to dissect the night – to see who was where, with whom and what they were wearing. As the pace of technology increases so does the ability to reflect, analyse and critique the period we have just lived through. From high fashion to customisation and sportswear, London’s party scene has always been the world’s premier example of cutting‐edge fashion, music and street‐style crossover. In documenting fashion at clubs, taking‐in characters dressed to impress, those who are simply expressing themselves and those who follow function first, the exhibition serves as an extensive image library of the capital’s mixture of youth movements and influences, providing rich material for analysis and critique for the realms of styling, photographic, cultural and sociological research. Antony Price
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Photographer Rory DCS
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Photographers Biographies Antony Price
Mega Mega Mega
It was seeing his students obsessing over club photographs online on a Monday morning that inspired LCF researcher and lecturer Antony Price to create the Noughtie Nightlife project. As both a club photographer and DJ himself, Antony Price is well versed in the club scene, having partied, snapped and spun in many of London’s influential venues of the Noughties. His nightlife and music photography have been published in Mixmag, Muzik, Jockey Slut and various online music publications.
Having swapped the quaint charms of Redhill for the bright lights of London at 16 years old, Matthew Brindle has been snapping London’s weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird under the guise of Mega Mega Mega since 2005. An all round creative genius, he’s also a designer, coder, digital retoucher and artist with an impressive client list including E4, Diesel, Toni & Guy and Britain’s Next Top Model.
As a LCF graduate, Antony Price began his career as an assistant retoucher at The Shoemakers Elves, working on images for Rankin, Dazed & Confused, i-D and The Face. Later he worked in both animation and photographic studios as a photographer and digital retoucher, evolving a high level of technical competence and a commitment to quality in multimedia outputs. His past research at LCF focused on the portrayal of digital manipulation in society with his Fashion CGI project exhibited at the ICA in 2007. www.anomalousvisuals.co.uk
Social media enthusiast Thom Will is an internationally published photographer and aspiring publicist who joined Mega Mega Mega in 2008. He studies Public Relations at London College of Communication, has worked with upcoming designer Emma Bell and recently displayed a series of images as part of the ‘Fish and Chips Twice Please’ exhibition in Vienna. www.megamegamega.com
We Know What You Did Last Night If there’s anyone who knows what you did last night, it’s likely to be Christopher James. The enterprising Biochemistry student from York moved to London in 2006 and has been snapping club land’s hot young things ever since. To date he’s uploaded over 56,000 photographs to WKWYDLN and photographed everything from Computer Blue to Caligula. If there’s a party happening, Christopher will definitely be there. www.weknowwhatyoudidlastnight.com
Billa Baldwin
David Swindells
Always the life and soul of the party, Billa’s philosophy is, ‘get drunk and get stuck in’. Originally from Newport in South Wales, he studied a HND in Photography before moving to London in 1998. Bike courier by day, and photographer by night, he has not only captured but also played a key role in the club and fashion scene over the last decade.
What do illicit daytime bhangra parties, escstasy-chomping house ravers, and polysexual Bastard Batty Bass fans in Bethnal Green have in common? None have escaped the attentions of photographer David Swindells, who has been documenting London’s nightlife since the mid 80s. As Nightlife Editor of Time Out from 19862009, he has become one of the most influential photographers on the scene.
His photos have been published in Disorder, i-D, Super Super, Clash, Time Out, XLR8R, Numero Tokyo, Sportswear International and Vogue. www.billabaldwin.com
Rory DCS Born in London, bred all over, Rory has been slipping in and out of night clubs since he was 14. Whilst studying Fashion Broadcasting at London College of Fashion, he worked in night clubs as an organiser, DJ and eventually a photographer. After figuring out that fashion photography was his true love, Rory dropped everything else and has never looked back. He is currently organising three new exhibitions, shooting for various magazines and concentrating on his commercial fashion work. www.rorydcs.com
www.PYMCA.com
Mr Hartnett Born in West London back in 1958 Mr Hartnett took his very first night club photograph at the tender age of eighteen and went on to amass an impressive archive of intrusive, gritty and glamorous photographs of the world’s party elite. Over the last 30 years, he has carefully observed club culture’s bright young things precariously walk the fine line between genius and insanity, decadence and excess, inventiveness and stupidity. Not just talented behind the lens, he is also a journalist, broadcaster and teacher and has contributed to publications included i-D, Dazed & Confused, Vogue Hommes International and The Sunday Times Magazine and produces trend reports for WGSN. www.paulhartnett.com www.PYMCA.com
Ellis Scott Ellis Scott has been making a name for himself since he began taking photographs aged 18. The LCF graduate has been documenting the colourful characters on the club scene since 2005 with nights such as Anti Social and All You Can Eat under his belt. In 2006 Scott worked with Nicola Formichetti to shoot the Spring/ Summer 2007 McQ campaign and went on to shoot Gareth Pugh’s Autumn/ Winter 2009 look book. His work has appeared in i-D, Dazed and Confused, Creative Review and he is currently collaborating on a book with performer Scottee Scottee. www.ellis-scott.com
Suzy del Campo It was whilst shooting portraits for ES magazine that Suzy del Campo’s photographs were spotted by Mix Mag, and her work as a club photographer began. A graduate from the University of Brighton, her work covers a broad spectrum from actors, bands and performers to club personalities. Internationally published, her work has appeared in magazines such as Sunday Times Style, The Face, Elle, German Max and Time Out. Her work was also featured in PYMCA’s ‘Unordinary People’ at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2009. www.suzydelcampo.com www.PYMCA.com 7
Photographers Biographies James Unsworth
Alex Warren
Growing up in Liverpool with two older brothers, who fed him a diet of Thrash Metal, Clive Barker and Stephen King, artist James Unsworth was always going to be interested in the darker aspects of life. His curiosity eventually attracted him to London, where he studied at the Royal College of Art, before exhibiting his work internationally. James’ scenes are populated by hyper-unreal depictions of murder, sex and dismemberment, comic/horrific figures engaged in acts of disembowelment, degradation and desecration while piles of body parts are splattered with simulated bodily fluids and are gradually engulfed by smoke. Rarely seen before, his photographs capture the underbelly of London’s nighttime exploits, with the artist’s passion for darkness clearly evident.
Having originally moved from Stourbridge to London to study Fine Art at Goldsmiths, Alex Warren soon found himself spending more time in clubs than in the studio; from photographing at Durrr and Smash & Grab to doing press shots for Erol Alkan and Boys Noize. He now focuses his time running his own night ‘Orlando Boom’ and is soon to launch The Nest, a nightclub and live space in Dalston.
www.jamesunsworth.com
Nicole Trevillian Electroclash, eighties retro, tiaras, tartan and makeup: it’s all documented in Nicole Trevillian’s photographic record of the last decade of London’s club scene. Born in Australia in 1975, Nicole has been living in London for more than twelve years. Her captivating work has been published in Vogue, Oyster and Fashion Now. She has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, i-D Magazine’s Undressed for Milan Fashion Week and Dr Martens bespoke designer exhibition at 93 Feet East in east London. www.nicoletrevillian.com
www.orlandoboom.net
Wade Fletcher Originally from Australia, 24 year old freelance photographer Wade Fletcher only got his hands on a DSLR three years ago. Entirely self-taught, he has been documenting the music and party scene since he began working on the London club scene in 2008. His main passion lies in shooting live music and working with musicians on promotional shots. www.wadefletcher.blogspot.com
Daniel Lismore ‘Social chemist’ Daniel Lismore has been documenting his surreal life in London since moving from Coventry in 2002. The 25 year old former Vogue model with his following of crazy club kids has over 20,000 photographs in his personal archive. Described by American Vogue as ‘London’s most outrageous dresser’ Daniel was one of the last people to capture the attention of Tatler’s Isabella Blow before her untimely death in 2007. www.daniellismore.blogspot.com
Photographer Billa Baldwin
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Photography Antony Price
Photographer Feature Antony Price
Not Just A Party
“I’m music mad; I have a soundtrack to every movement I make and my headphones rarely leave my ears on journeys of any length,” enthuses Antony Price, the creator of the Noughtie Nightlife exhibition. As a photographer, DJ, self-confessed computer geek and lecturer at the London College of Fashion, the 33 year old has witnessed an entire decade of clubbing from both behind the lens and behind the decks. Now, with the Noughties in the rear view mirror, he celebrates the club photographs that have defined the JPEG generation. Teaching digital arts on the BA (Hons) Fashion Promotion and FdA Fashion Styling and Photography courses, Price is the antithesis of usual University lecturers. As far as parties are concerned, he’s been there, he’s done that, and he’s got the (beer stained) T-shirt. His love affair with all things nocturnal began at the age of 14 and inspired by hearing a young Erol Alkan spinning at various Indie clubs around London in the mid 90’s, he was soon clubbing at least three times a week whilst saving up for those elusive Technics. “I pretty much spent my life in clubs, first just partying then moving into DJing and promoting after being bitten by the electronic music bug,” he remembers. “I’d studied photography at A-Level so it just seemed natural to take photos of parties I was at, although to be honest it was more a love of music and having fun that really mattered.” Born and bred in Leyton, east London, Price studied Fashion Photography and Styling at the London College of Fashion before working for Dazed & Confused’s retouching department The Shoemakers Elves. “I was DJing around London and doing various freelance photography bits and bobs,” he says, “and then I got invited to teach Photoshop
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Photographer Feature Antony Price
at the London College of Fashion which was quite weird because it’s where I had studied.” Not held back by the oddity of teaching on the same course he’d graduated from just years previously, teaching soon became his focus, and educating digital arts became a passion that still remains. “Teaching is fun and certainly not what I expected when i began. I enjoy the element of interaction, of passing on knowledge and watching what others will develop from it, although at first many of my students seemed more interested in surfing the net in class than actually learning a skill,” he admits. It took quite a lot of time for Price to get his head around the idea of social networking. “Facebook totally weirded me out to begin with, it made me feel kind of old,” Price says. But with a classroom of slightly worse-forwear students tagging, sharing and asking ‘did we get shot?’ and ‘did I make the front page!’ every Monday morning, his fascination with the online phenomena grew. Soon Dirty Dirty Dancing, We Know What You Did Last Night and Mega Mega Mega were being name-checked by the coolest kids in town and
many of his students became part of the club ‘glitterati’ themselves. “Club photography has never really been recognised as an art in itself,” he explains. “Clubbing lets you be who you want to be, wear what you want to wear and do what you want to do, and in the process lets you create a character. The purpose of this exhibition and the archive is to give all these amazing images a permanent home, away from the online world where they can be deleted with the click of a button or simply tagged and forgotten about on Google or someone’s server.” The Noughties may have only just ended but Price believes it’s already time to draw a line and move on: “Technology has advanced so much in the last decade, even in just the last 5 years the digital revolution has changed the way we think and behave so much; being online all the time has become so consuming. The ability to document and share information and imagery in such a rapid way has made it almost negligible, so much so I think we need to take a step back and assign this period as history in order to move into a new phase.”
Having looked through an astonishing 100,000 images in the process of creating this exhibition, he has lived through ten years of decadence and debauchery, pixel by pixel. So what really stands out? “I guess its got to be the pure mix’n’match hybrid attitude that make the images really interesting stylistically, there’s everything from florescent painted torsos, designer items paired with charity shop chic, ultra glam with urban warrior elements to minimal-maximal straight-gay fusion. It’s the same with the music, the crossover and intermingling of electronic, urban and guitar sounds has lead to so many mini movements and tribes, that’s the Noughties phenomenon for me, taking bits from all over the place, every era, and splicing them together to try and find new forms. In historical terms it will no doubt be the fluoro, plastic, cartoon mish-mash of Nu-Rave that will tell the visual story of the decade’s youth,” he muses. “That look and scene just became so commercial so quickly; seeing such ironic, mix n match, rebellious and inventive styling eaten up and spat out by Topshop etc was so interesting but so sad as well. A movement was categorised and killed off before it even really developed.” The Noughties were the decade in which fashion and music married, divorced, remarried then couldn’t quite decide what to do next. Whereas some nights concentrated on the power of the aural, others were more interested in the visual. “The clubs I went to were focused on music, less on fashion, and that really shows in my own photography as it’s much more portrait based,” he explains. “Functional jeans and T-shirts say a lot about a person’s attitude, and just because your not dressed up to the nines doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be captured as well.” For Antony, this exhibition isn’t about massaging egos or scene politics. For those who have spent the last decade clubbing
in London, the mesmerising has a habit of becoming mundane and the outrageous soon becomes ordinary. “I would like people who don’t know the scene to see what crazy wild times go on when fashion and music intertwine and have a beautiful dance together,” he explains. Love it or hate it, the club scene has had a huge impact not only on the fashion industry but on the wider cultural picture as a whole. The Noughties saw the ‘Slash Slash’ generation become a serious force to be reckoned with. ‘DJ/ illustrator/ stylist/ drummer’ cried the Myspace profiles of those who refused to limit themselves to one discipline. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter became the perfect platform for presenting to the big wide world. Self-PR, self-promotion and self-marketing were key, and the brand was ‘ME ME ME’. In a world where the world and his wife can have a worldwide audience with just a few clicks, what can come next? “Over the last six years, I’ve noticed a lot of people branding themselves through clubbing, fashion and music, to make themselves into something. Using social networking as a form of selfpromotion is fine and absolutely necessary but should be done with a modicum of understanding as to what went on before it and, most essentially, how it is going to develop from here. Things have changed so much in the last decade, and will adapt even more quickly in the future.” So has the last decade been more than just one long party? “Yes and no,” Antony muses. “For some it was always just a party but others have managed to sculpt a career out of it and will go on to do incredibly well for themselves.” With the Noughtie Nightlife retrospective drawing a line under the last decade, has the disco ball stopped spinning? Have the photographers’ bulbs ceased flashing? Has the DJ gone home to bed? “Parties come to an end,” Antony concludes, “but a new one has only just begun.”
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the flash pops. and i see you. struck by lighting. bare. brutal. naked.
Photographer Feature Matthew Brindle
We’re more than a little out of place. Grimy pub, stained beer mats and cheese and onion crisps? Huge plasma screens and a nervous air of anticipation? Uruguay vs Korea? Oh yes... The World Cup. And we might have just found photographer Matthew Brindle a new project. Forget club photography, what about pub photography? Matthew Brindle laughs as he looks around the busy pub, imagining the football shirts and beer bellies getting the Mega Mega Mega treatment. This is a very different world to the one in which the talented photographer usually spends his time, and it’s difficult to picture the lager-soaked football fans holding their own next to the galleries of vodkasoaked club kids who dominate his website. As one half of MegaMegaMega.com, Brindle was, and still is, one of the most in demand photographers of the Noughties. Born in Redhill, Surrey, Brindle discovered the power of the internet at the tender age of 12. “I started taking self-portraits using a shitty little digital camera,” he explains. Through creating various online profiles, he played with the concept of creating an identity which could be changed with a few strokes of the keyboard and a new profile picture. The identity that stuck, however, was ‘Skullboy’.
At 15, Brindle left home and headed for the bright lights of London, ‘Skullboy’ in tow. “I wasn’t really happy with my life and just decided that I was going to leave to do what I wanted to do and be who I wanted to be,” he says. “I was only meeting people I knew from the internet, and disowned everyone from my old life.” The clearly talented photographer continued taking the stunning self-portraits that had brought him to London until one day someone suggested he should start taking photos of other people. He did, and his career as a club photographer began. “It’s very much about club kids getting as fucked as they possibly can and then dressing up as crazily as they can,” he laughs. And there’s nothing that an intoxicated club kid in crazy dress up likes more than the sight of Brindle on a night out. It isn’t just the photographs that they are after either; he is just as well known for being the life and soul of any party he’s thrown into. “I didn’t even care if Matt didn’t take photos,” promoter extraordinaire Daniel Lismore enthuses. “I just wanted him at my nights because he was great fun. He was such a part of it, jumping up and down each and every time and just going crazy.” It’s easy to see both Brindle’s personality and his passion in his work. “Garish, in your face,
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Photographer Feature Matthew Brindle
punchy yet still refined” is how he describes his style. His subjects might be slightly worse for wear, yet never look it. Had a late night? Too much vodka? Dancing with your eyes shut? It’s nothing that won’t look fabulous through Brindle’s lens. As spontaneous as most of Brindle’s club photography was, he became known for his legendary ‘photo booth’ at cult night Black Balloon. “We would find out what time the photo booth would open,” explains one former club kid, “and arrive in time to queue for a photo, and then leave to go somewhere else.” “You can shoot until the cows come home with the best stylists in the world, but these kids were styling themselves and they learned very quickly what worked,” Brindle explains. With the best photograph usually making it onto the flier for the next month’s night, competition was rife. “I loved it at first but soon it became obvious that people would dress up to come for a photograph, not to dance, and it got a bit weird and overpowering.” Club legend has it that when Brindle threatened to sell his camera over his Facebook status, a group called ‘Bring Back Brindle’ was quickly set up by an anonymous fan, with the intention of soliciting donations so the popular photographer could continue working his magic.
Having documented the scene since 2006, Brindle has seen a lot of changes which he attributes to the drugs and the music changing. “Everyone used to go out and get loved up taking pills but that doesn’t really happen anymore,” he says. “The scene as a whole has become much more serious, and it’s not just fun anymore.” Now he describes how people “very much take themselves there” in order to achieve something. “In the older photos it’s clear that we just went out wearing a toilet seat on our head and covered in ink because it was fun and we wanted to have a wicked time. But kids these days are thinking about the greater meaning of it. We’re being copied left, right and centre by people who are young and just starting out. Now it has become ‘oh I have to do this, I must get into the scene’.” For Brindle, it was the ‘anything goes’ aspect of Nag Nag Nag that represented what the Noughties were all about. “It was no holes barred,” he explains. “There was this guy who the bouncers wouldn’t let in because he had nothing on but a bucket of gold paint, a sleeping bag and a pair of heels, and the promoter, Cormac, came up to him and let him walk straight in.” Seen through MegaMegaMega’s fantastically flattering filter, the Noughties are sure to go down in history as one of the most inspired decades that clubland has ever seen. “It was a golden age,” Brindle concludes,” and I doubt it will happen again in my lifetime.”
Photographer Mathew Brindle 17
Photographer Feature Christopher James
We know what you did last night… He’s been reminding everyone ‘what they did last night’, should they forget, since 2006. Christopher James, with his skinny jeans, strategic stubble and boy-next-door good looks, is the founder of club photography stalwart WeKnowWhatYouDidLastNight.com. And if there’s a party to be papped, Christopher’s most likely to be there… It was thanks to an acid casualty of a geography teacher that James found himself behind the lens. “I had no idea why but he always used to call me Richard and one day he just gave me a camera, some film and a key to the school dark room,” the York born photographer remembers. Finding himself in the dark room, and thoroughly enjoying the photographic development process, he kept on going from there. With a degree in Microbiology from the University of Sheffield under his belt, and a job at the BBC, James moved to London and began doing band photography, submitting photos to the likes of Art Rocker and Gigwise. “I went to Antisocial on New Years Eve to take photos of a band called ‘The Real Heat’,” he explains, “but instead I looked at the people around me and thought ‘fucking hell, look at these people!’ and decided to take photos of them instead.” And so it was. Christopher James the club photographer was born. “Having an outlet for what you create is very important, even if you create the outlet yourself,” he explains. So James created WeKnowWhatYouDidLastNight. com, where he has been documenting Londoners’ late night antics from Wet Yourself to Caligula and everything else in between since 2006. He’s clearly doing something right; to date he’s uploaded over 56,000 photographs to WKWYDLN and gets approximately 150,000 to 200,000 page hits per month. Although his photographs lack the extremely airbrushed quality of some of his contemporaries, James still doubts that the images he creates are entirely truthful.
“When you look at my website now, you’re not seeing an accurate representation of what clubbing in London is like at the moment,” he explains. “You’re seeing a kind of fictional lifestyle that you buy into. I often make parties look more fun than they actually are. It’s nice to create a little imaginary bubble that you could be in, with only bits of it being true.” Even in the last four years, James has noticed a change in the attitudes of the people he photographs; from the Facebook Generation to the subsequent Facebook Generation who understand the power of the ‘untag’ option. “I think people really wanted multimedia attention and wanted their photos on Facebook and Flickr and everywhere else,” he explains, “Now everyone wants to take a step back, to be able to untag their photos, and control what images people out there are seeing.” As a good looking guy with the ability to take great photographs, James has become somewhat of a hit with the ladies. Whereas other photographers were getting down, dirty and drunk with their subjects, Christopher became known for taking aside the prettiest girls and snapping them in all sorts of compromising positions. “There used to be a time when girls would get naked in clubs. Some of the other photographers were actually seen almost ripping the clothes off girls, and they became known for it but I never did that,” he says. “At Wet Yourself I once saw two girls having sex on the side of the swimming pool, completely naked. It was definitely part of the scene at the time, but now I think it’s cringe worthy so I would never encourage it.” In spite of his reputation, James is adamant that his camera isn’t the only attraction. “I’ve seen
girls naked many times in my life,” he laughs. “I don’t need a camera to make girls take their clothes off! But I think if you take pictures of a girl and you make her look really sexy, then a lot of girls think that it’s amazing, and they feel good about themselves.” Girls aside, WeKnowWhatYouDidLastNight is making quite a name for itself. Having spent the last few years hobnobbing with east London’s finest creative talents, James put together a pop-up shop which appeared in Soho during London Fashion Week earlier this year under the WKWYDLN umbrella. From upcycled vintage label Bitching & Junkfood to 21st century cabaret stars Bourgeois and Maurice and upcoming designer Alexandra Groover, James showcased his subjects through a different medium, this time without the use of pixels. Using a rough and ready empty shop on Beak Street, he gave the awaiting fashion industry a taste of his world. It’s this awareness of the creativity around him that has turned WeKnowWhatYouDidLastNight into much more than a collection of a few pretty pictures. The slick design and clever branding has resulted in a website which epitomises the online generation; from the requisite blog, the Twitter feed and the ability to ‘like’ any photograph from the site and let everyone on Facebook know about it, through to the online shop, where James sells the work of the cool kids he photographs. James’ success is down to a clear understanding of the nature of both socialising and social networking and the link between them. As long as he continues to evolve as technology develops, it’s clear to see that he will be knowing exactly What We Did Last Night for a very long time to come.
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Photography Christopher James
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Photographer Feature Billa Baldwin
Harsh real ity There are few photographers who have captured London’s raw energy in quite the same way as Billa Baldwin. Bike courier by day, and photographer by night, his photographs have appeared in the hallowed glossy pages of i-D, Super Super and Vogue. With such success, it would be easy for him to have developed an ego bigger than his camera’s megapixels. But this is one photographer whose feet have remained firmly on the ground. In the fickle world of fashion, few people are content spending a night in a pub, sipping a pint of beer. Billa Baldwin, born in the Welsh town of Newport as Ian Baldwin, is one of them. Having developed his technical skills studying a HND in Photography at the Cheltenham and Gloucester Institute of Higher Education, he made the move to the Big Smoke in 1998 and has been lighting up the club scene with his ring flash ever since. It was back in 2000 when the Shoreditch electroclash scene was establishing itself as a force to be reckoned with that Billa began taking photos of his night time exploits. “I was just using a 35mm compact, taking a couple of rolls every night,” he remembers. It’s clear that Billa loves his subjects, and they love him right back. With a philosophy of ‘get drunk and get stuck in’, it’s easy to see how he has managed to capture moments that just wouldn’t be available to other photographers. The last thing Billa needs is a fully lit studio and an entire Vogue’s worth of models. Give him a graffiti covered toilet and a girl in a k-hole and the results are much more captivating than anything staged could ever be. “Harsh reality is where it’s at,” he explains.
Yet his photographs aren’t crude, vulgar, or grotesque; and neither are they overly airbrushed to polished perfection. He’s managed to hone a happy medium between the two extremes. With Billa’s photos, the aesthetic is clear: the glitter is most definitely in the gutter. “It’s out of control, dirty glamour,” he describes. “I like glamour when you’re fucked off your head and you look amazing and there’s a dude vomiting or whatever.” As real as Billa’s photos are, there is still an element of post-production. “I mess around with levels on a batch process, but I don’t individually edit them,” he explains. So no removal of blackheads or changing of hair colours? “No, balls to that,” he laughs. Although he was capturing some of London’s hottest young things, there was never an ulterior motive. “I was just there to have a good time,” he admits, “it just so happens that I had a camera as well.” With a job that pays more in beer than it does in pounds, Billa became apt at handling his camera after a fair few drinks. “Because of my technical ability, I can work a camera backwards even whilst blind drunk,” he laughs. It was for this reason that Billa was rarely seen out in the early days without his trusty Sony Cybershot. “If you’re going out with an expensive camera, you can’t have any fun.
It didn’t take long for the talented photographer’s edgy work to catch the attention of the neon-crazed editors of Super Super magazine, and soon his photos were gracing the pages of the cult magazine in fully pixelated glory. Forget the likes of Kate Moss, it was the crazily dressed creatives of club land who were showcased on the pages of the cult style bible; whether it was features on the drugs-du-jour, ‘SUPERTRENDS!’ of the moment, or pages and pages of the magazine’s contributors and followers posing and pouting in club land, as captured by Billa. “He is beyond my favourite,” Super Super’s Fashion Director Namalee enthuses. “He had passion. He went out because he wanted to go out and not because he wanted to take photos of cool people. He was at every single club you could ever imagine. He was the real deal.” It was his willingness to get stuck in that saw him stand out from other photographers. “Billa is just Super Super. He was always just there with them, lying on the floor,” Namalee remembers. His photographic style deeply resonated with her, the contrast of the dark and lightness within his photos symbolising something deeper than the electric coloured outfits he was shooting would at first suggest. “That represents my reality,” she explains. “We’re not actually really happy people, and there are a lot of dark bits that we’re also trying to express. We were trying to be positive and link to our childhood.” By the end of the Noughties, photographers had become the demi gods of the clubbing scene and their shooting skills were in hot demand.
The pursuit of pleasure had been overtaken by the pursuit of a profile picture. “I wouldn’t want to sit on my throne saying come on subjects,” Billa explains. Yet once he entered a room, his subjects posed and pouted, keen to capture the attention of the talented photographer. Billa would be the first to admit that, other than the beer, this did have its advantages. And that mainly came in the form of girls. “I’m a sex pest,” he jokes. “The one thing I used to do was just pull girls tops down and completely get away with it!” Billa’s photographs don’t need the heavy branding and sleek websites for which other club photographers have become known. He uploads everything he takes onto Flickr, and provides high resolution versions for his subjects to download as they please. “I just shoot it as it is,” the refreshingly down to earth photographer concludes. “I’m not there to make it look ohgod-amazing.” It isn’t just the club scene that has benefited from his razor sharp photographic eye. As the official backstage photographer for London Fashion Week, Billa has been documenting the darlings of the fashion industry in his distinctive style since 2007. “I’m doing exactly the same thing I do with my club photographs and that’s why I get thrown out of things so easily,” he explains. “They just can’t believe the photographs come out of the camera I use.” The size of Billa’s camera has been of absolutely no concern to a generation of London’s club kids. To them, reality might be harsh, but as long as Billa’s there with his camera and a pint of beer, it’s all good…
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Photography Billa Baldwin
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Photography Rory DCS
Photographer Feature Rory DCS
In A Flash
“I’m the prostitute of nightclubs,” Rory DCS jokes, having shot everything from electroclash to dance and all that’s inbetween. Now an upcoming fashion photographer, the illusive Rory has left the world of club photography behind… “The fashion lot just wanted to pose in front of a camera,” Rory DCS laughs. The photographer from west London began documenting the club scene in 2006, but preferred to stay away from the ‘over-fashioned’ crowd and concentrate on the indie scene. “I enjoyed it because they were more up for running around doing crazy shit.” One of his favourite subjects and particularly well known for being the life and soul of the party was girl about town, Vogue model and Brazilian heiress Alice Dellal. “I always had a laugh with her,” Rory remembers. “Whenever she was around we did a little photo story of her.” The London College of Fashion graduate now concentrates on fashion photography, producing look books for the designers he once shot in clubs. His Flickr account, once home to hundreds of photographs is now nowhere to be found. “After this exhibition, I don’t think I’ll ever dig out these club photos ever again,” Rory says wistfully. “There’s an over saturation of photographers now. At Lovebox recently there were more cameras in the air than people dancing.”
Although his focus has shifted, Rory admits that club photography did have its advantages. “Club photography is an amazing way of learning your trade,” he says. “Hundreds of hours in clubs with a camera in hand trying to shoot 2000 people has made me so chilled out on fashion shoots now as I know exactly what I want the shot to be.” Credited by Vice magazine as ‘the pioneer of tits and arse photography’, Rory’s photos featured a lot of very sexy girls. “Meeting lots of girls, getting into places for free and getting free drinks made it all worth it,” he laughs. “You can’t be one of those tossers at the front of the pit snapping people from afar. I’m much more likely to be seen semi passed out on the dance floor with my camera in the air.” So the primary pursuit was always pleasure, and the photographs were just an added bonus? “Yes,” Rory laughs, “absolutely 100%.”
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Photographer Feature Ellis Scott
Reality check
Few photographers have captured the Noughties’ scene in quite the same way as Ellis Scott. Without a Photoshop filter, an air brush or a huge flash, his images show the club world as it really was… Ellis Scott has a big fan, a very big fan indeed. “He just gets how to make a photograph,” explains performer and ex club promoter Scottee Scottee. “He’s all about pushing himself to be innovative. I really don’t want to work with a photographer who puts all his photos through an action on Photoshop so all the photos look the same and everyone looks blemish free and gorgeous.” It’s his almost painfully real style that defines Scott’s photography and sets him apart from the glossy Photoshopped world that other photographers portray. “I’m often referred to as the person who shows you exactly how you looked on the night,” he explains. “My images aren’t flattering. They are real and show the reality of the night.” Scott is as likely to turn up in a photograph of the Noughties as he is to have taken it, complete with his requisite bum bag, “I was a club kid,” he explains. “I didn’t turn up to clubs acting like a
superior photographer and expecting people around me to pose.” The 25 year old London College of Fashion graduate has been taking photos since he was 18 but it was at Scottee’s Anti Social that his passion for club photography was ignited. “There were two rooms,” he remembers, “one was full of big sweaty bears and the second was full of UV clad club kids. The first photograph I vividly remember was a 60 year old obese woman who asked if I could take her photo. She pulled out her breasts and pulled the most grotesque faces.” It seems fitting that Scottee is Scott’s muse of sorts. Whether it’s vegetable soup sick, a selfinflicted hysterectomy or body stockings with drawn on vaginas; give Scottee a box and he’ll break out of it, give him a line and he’ll cross it. With the gloss of the other photographers, Scottee’s raw appeal is lost but with Scott, that reality is accentuated. Warts and all… But it seems that the dark underbelly of London’s nightlife isn’t something Scott set out to capture. “Nights aren’t glamorous or gritty,” he concludes. “They’re just a bunch of young people trying to have fun.”
Photography Ellis Scott
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Credits
Antony Price Concept, Production & Curation www.anomalousvisuals.co.uk Louise Hemmings Features Editor www.dirtydirtylaundry.co.uk Francesca Boyd Production Assistant www.suchalotallatonce.blogspot.com
Shabnam Naomi Spiers Creative Consultant Laura Drake Chambers Features Assistant Emily Charlotte Ward Editorial Assistant
Antony Price would like to thank: All the photographers, contributors and interviewees who have made this project happen, Matthew Brindle, Christopher James, Billa Baldwin, Rory DCS, Ellis Scott, David Swindells, Mr Hartnett, Suzy del Campo, Wade Fletcher, Alex Warren, Nicole Trevillian, James Unsworth, Daniel Lismore, Rai Royal, Jim Warboy, Jodie Harsh, Scottee, Namalee Bolle and Fayann Smith. The team at LCF, Rebecca Munro, Melissa Langlands, Anna Millhouse, David Hardy and David Revagliatte for the organisational skills to make this all come together. Jolene Adams and James Langley at PYMCA for aiding the development of the project. Oliver Carruthers at Rich Mix for believing in the vision. Clare Dover for countless bits of advice and help. Liam Campling for encouraging the process and giving direction. Amaya Ducru Clouthier for giving me belief in myself and making me smile. Sam Fisher for putting up with me, dealing with my hectic madness and giving me optimism for a creative future. For more information, additional features and project updates visit: www.pigeonsandpeacocks.com/noughtienightlife www.anomalousvisuals.co.uk
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Cover Photography Rory DCS