British Journal of Photography - October 2016 by British Journal of Photography

Nadav Kander’s Daily Presentations Charlie Kwai down on the street

Portraits for print: New York Times, FT Weekend, Die Zeit, Riposte & Brick

Wolfgang Tillmans, Erwin Blumenfeld Nikon D500, Zeiss Batis, Fuji X-T2

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P O R T R A I T O F B R I TA I N

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Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

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Editor’s Introduction Portrait of Britain

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Beyond the front page: the bigger picture on migration

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Cover story: Portrait of Britain

Never has the idea of British nationhood seemed so loaded. With Brexit and the vote on Scottish independence, the rise of nationalism, class division, north versus south…. we are currently constantly fed the narrative that we are a nation divided. In highlighting the political and geographical differences, we are asked to ignore the fact that we are a nation of individuals. In the months leading up to the vote on EU membership, BJP put out an open call for portraits of the people of Britain. The call was never framed within the context of acrimony, nor did we foresee the outcome of the referendum and our current anxieties. Yet we hoped that, collectively, the 100 selected portraits would present an alternative to the mainstream rhetoric, and that taken on their own they would add some nuance to the picture of who we are as a country, and celebrate our unique heritage and diversity. The result is public art on a huge scale – a countrywide exhibition that puts the nation’s citizens centre stage in high streets, shopping precincts and railway stations throughout September. Positioned within iconic retail and transport hubs such as The Bullring, Bluewater, St Pancras and Edinburgh Waverley, 100 of the more than 4000 portraits entered will go on display across JCDecaux’s digital network of screens UK-wide, confronting the public with a reflection of themselves as they go about their daily business. You can view all 100 portraits at portraitofbritain.uk, along with some of the stories of the people who feature in them. And if you like what you see, most are available to purchase as prints. Simon Bainbridge Editor Introduction: October 2016

Digital first. Read the best from our print edition, before it goes to print.

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From Daily Presentations © Nadav Kander.

Image © Charlie Kwai.

Mr Bloomfield © Emanuele Giovagnoli.

Featured: October 2016

34 – 43 Daily Presentations For his Daily Presentations series, award-winning Nadav Kander persuaded unexpecting passersby to be photographed in a pop-up photo studio in a shopping centre in Walthamstow, east London.

50 – 68 Portrait of Britain Every summer, BJP hosts an open call for amateur and professional photographers to create their vision of a "portrait of Britain". Out of thousands of entries, just 100 portraits were chosen for a carefully curated exhibition.

44 – 48 The Chancer Charlie Kwai gave up his job as a freelance graphic designer to capture the people on the streets of London. With an insatiable hunger for that elusive better shot, he developed an unapologetically truculent style all of his own.

71 – 81 Portrait Job We ask the picture editors of BRICK, Riposte, The New York Times Magazine, FT Weekend Magazine and ZEITmagazin to name memorable photographers and portrait shoots that have helped to define their publications. Featured: October 2016

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of Britain:Yogananthan Cover Story TellingPortrait Tales: Vasantha

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Index

Features 34 Nadav Kander's new series Daily Presentations explores the human condition through portraits of Saturday shoppers in an east London mall 44 Charlie Kwai has carved a niche with his confrontational brand of street photography 50 We present a selection of the 100 images chosen for Portrait of Britain, BJP's countrywide exhibition reflecting the diversity of our country 71 Five top picture editors on five portrait photographers

12 14 16

Agenda Cristina de Middel shot portraits of prostitutes' clients in Rio for this year's NPG In Focus show Any Answers: Matt Stuart Brighton Biennial returns 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London shines a light on notable photographers and new talent from the continent A new exhibition at Osborne Samuel gallery brings together Erwin Blumenfeld’s impressive oeuvre In his book Conor Donlon, Wolfgang Tillmans explores how the photobook shop owner changed with time

Projects 23 Duo Rumore Pair experiment with visual language, appropriating images from Google Maps to document migrants in Southern Italy 26 Spencer Murphy captures emotion through images for an Art Fund commission 28 Jack Davison took a playful approach to shooting John Morgan for It’s Nice That, 6

Index: October 2016

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incorporating his designs with portraits of family life 30 Paloma Fernandez redefines the fashion shoot

Intelligence 83 Established gallerists are examining how to respond to the rise in online print sales 88 Creative Brief: Matthew Beaman, Monocle's director of photography, on sourcing imagery from around the world 91 Digital curator at The Photographers’ Gallery and co-founder of CSNI, Katrina Sluis is making an impact with the Media Wall Technology 95 News: DJI and Hasselblad launch their first joint-branded product, plus lenses from Panasonic and Nikon and softboxes from Interfit 97 Is Nikon’s latest SLR, the D500, a bargain compared with the mighty D5? 102 Zeiss Batis autofocus lenses put to the test 104 General manager of Fujifilm UK, Theo Georghiades, on targeting pros with the X-T2 107 Four of the best small system cameras

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91– 92

Archive 114 In the 06 January 1994 issue Jillian Edelstein told BJP what makes a good portrait 14-15 From The Dandy Lion Project on show at Brighton Photo Biennial © Rose Callahan 28-29 © Jack Davidson 91-92 © Kate Elliott

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Sunshine gets me in the flow artwork by Malika Favre

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Contributors Nadav Kander’s Daily Presentations Charlie Kwai down on the street

Portraits for print: New York Times, The FT, Die Zeit, Riposte & The Brick

Wolfgang Tillmans, Erwin Blumenfeld Nikon D500, Zeiss Batis, Fuji X-T2

P O R T R A I T O F B R I TA I N

The Portrait Issue October 2016 Issue 7852, Volume 163 BJP_October_Cover_Decided.indd 1

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Established 1854

12/08/2016 10:01

Cover Dave Okumu © Phil Sharp. A print of this image can be purchased at portraitofbritain.uk

Maisie Skidmore London-based writer Maisie Skidmore has specialised in writing about photography and fashion since graduating from King’s College in 2013, and is already the deputy editor of Anothermag.com, a digital magazine that offers a blend of high fashion, art and culture. This month she delves into a new Erwin Blumenfeld exhibition, learning among other things that the German Jewish photographer was “an avid fan of Charlie Chaplin. Their lives had some parallels, too – while Chaplin was making his way onto Hitler’s death list as an enemy of the Nazi party with his unique brand of satire, Blumenfeld was creating a whole collection of anti-Nazi propaganda, which was later dropped all over Europe from Allied planes during the Second World War. All this, while their creator served a spell in a concentration camp.” maisieskidmore.com

Emma Bowkett The director of photography for the FT Weekend Magazine and now PORT magazine too, Bowkett is a key figure in the London photography scene and long-term friend of BJP. She has also been on the judging panels for a number of prestigious awards, including the IAFOR Documentary Photography Award last year. Bowkett has worked with scores of talented photographers, but picked out Bryan Schutmaat for particular notice in this issue. She studied for an MA in Image & Communication at Goldsmiths College and would like to have her own black-and-white darkroom one day but for now takes pictures “only on [her] iPhone”. This autumn, she is most looking forward to seeing the new Diane Arbus exhibition at the Met Museum in New York. @emmalbowkett

Nadav Kander Born in Tel Aviv and brought up in Johannesburg, Nadav Kander settled in London as an adult and swiftly established himself as one of the most successful commercial portrait photographers in the world. He’s taken iconic photographs of Barack Obama and Desmond Tutu, David Beckham and David Lynch, among many more, but he went on to launch a fine art career specialising in conceptual, landscape-orientated series. Yangtze, the Long River won the prestigious Prix Pictet in 2009, while his series Dust, which documents Soviet nuclear test sites on the border between Kazakhstan and Russia, and Bodies, a series of nudes, have both been exhibited at London’s respected Flowers Gallery. Daily Presentations is his latest series.

Shana Ting Lipton Beginning her career as a music journalist writing about the underground rock scene in Los Angeles where she grew up, Shana Ting Lipton soon expanded her range to cover creative arts, business and politics. This month for BJP, she writes about the new interest in the online photography market among high-end specialist gallerists. She says she too is open to buying prints online, but adds that she will “never forget the riveting experience of buying a David Bowie portrait by Andrew Kent live at a Christie’s charity auction”. She has recently graduated with her second degree, in media law, and is looking forward to blending her new professional skills with her editorial work.

nadavkander.com

shanatinglipton.com

Colophon: October 2016

Editorial Director Simon Bainbridge Executive Editor Diane Smyth

Agenda

Online & Social Media Editor Tom Seymour

Cristina de Middel aims to break down stereotypes with her series of photographs of prostitutes’ clients

Digital Producer Brennavan Sritharan Creative Director Mick Moore Senior Designer Nicky Brown

NPG In Focus

Editorial Assistant Izabela Radwanska Zhang

Words by Izabela Radwanska Zhang

Contributors Rob Alderson, Gerry Badger, Taco Hidde Bakker, Emma Bowkett, Laurence Butet-Roch, David Campany, Federica Chiocchetti, Lucy Davies, Damien Demolder, Martin Evening, Marc Feustel, Jessica Gordon, Michael Grieve, Peter Hamilton, Lauren Heinz, Nadav Kander, David Kilpatrick, Richard Kilpatrick, Stephen McLaren, Donatella Montrone, Colin Pantall, Juan Peces, Rachel Segal Hamilton, Maisie Skidmore, Ahmed Shawki, Shana Ting Lipton, Eliza Williams, Paul Wombell, Sophie Wright

Each year the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition opens at the National Portrait Gallery, showing off the shots that most impressed the judges in this prestigious worldwide prize. Since 2015 the gallery has also hosted a simultaneous In Focus exhibition, highlighting a new body of work by an internationally established photographer. Last year, the honour fell to Pieter Hugo; this year, from 07 November to 26 February 2017, Spanish photographer Cristina de Middel will present 20 images exploring the sex industry in Brazil’s capital Rio de Janeiro. As one of the main prostitution hubs in Latin America, Rio has seen the business flourish in recent years – particularly with the added attraction of the Fifa World Cup in 2014 and the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Rather than focusing on the prostitutes, de Middel homed in on their clients, placing a small ad in the local newspapers in June 2015, asking them to come forward and take part in the project. “I was surprised by the response, but Rio is a very relaxed city when it comes

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to sex,” says de Middel. “There is not that much of a prejudice.” Shooting in the same hotels clients visit with the prostitutes, the photographer also interviewed each one, building a profile of their backgrounds and motivations for buying sex. “I wanted to get some information that could help build a portrait of the type of men that use this service,” says de Middel. “Things that the female audience could be interested in to help understand the business.” De Middel shot to fame in 2012 with a tongue-in-cheek, semi-staged project on Zambia’s 1960s space programme, entitled The Afronauts, but took a documentary approach with this series. She’s keen to expand the project to other cities, including Mexico City, Bombay and Amsterdam, and hopes to attract more interest from print publications – some of whom have, she says, been reluctant to publish the series so far due to “lack of suitability”. “This series is created to be published in newspapers and magazines because that is where the damage is done regarding the perception of gender inequality,” de Middel says. “There is still a lot to do.” npg.org.uk

Below: Luis is an electrician and a single father of two; he prefers not to say his age. He first saw a prostitute at the age of 11 and has gone back every week since because he is lonely, paying roughly 30 reals (£7) per session. Image © Cristina de Middel.

We preview Brighton’s Photo Biennial and Cristina de Middel’s show to accompany the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, plus the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair and an Erwin Blumenfeld retrospective Agenda: On View

An Italian duo appropriate images from Google Maps to document migrant workers in Italy, the Art Fund charity takes an abstract approach to rebranding, and a commission for It’s Nice That that takes its inspiration from a British designer and his willing kids. Interviews by Sophie Wright

Just visit www.bjpsubs.com Use this Promo code: OCT16A Hurry! Offer ends 07 September 2016 when you take out an annual subscription* The story behind two NGO campaigns made with refugees

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Domenico d’Alessandro and Maria Palmieri, a photography duo from Southern Italy who have been collaborating under the moniker Rumore Pair since late 2014, working on what they describe as experiments with the limits of visual language, document complex issues beyond mainstream narratives. “Our aim is to always create an honest story, so we are careful in how we bind

Meet the photographers putting a human face to the migration crisis

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Cover story: Portrait of Britain

Projects

together what we say with how we say it.” Their latest project, Boundary as a Frame, won the audience prize at this year’s Prix Levallois for its innovative approach to representing migration to Europe from Africa. Juxtaposing informal portraits of young men, mainly migrant workers from Senegal, with impersonal, appropriated imagery from Google Maps, the border of each image

Rumore Pair Projects: Personal

All images © Rumore Pair.

serves as a framing device that references the subject’s journey. Fencing in the intimate portraits, the frames point to the geopolitical boundaries that can shape each individual’s experience of migration. The duo have a broad range of experience and interests between them that inform their work. Palmieri has a background in law and an interest in vernacular photography, while D’Alessandro completed a degree in international relations and politics before studying documentary photography. Sensitive to the issue of migration, they took 24

Projects: Personal

a local approach in Boundary as a Frame, turning their lenses on their hometown of Foggia, a small city in Puglia, where migrant workers are often hired illegally in the summer months to pick tomatoes during the harvest season. The project focuses on a community of workers they met, who were squatting in a former factory in the suburbs of Foggia. The pair initially spent time building a sense of trust with the workers, and when they eventually began shooting, they did so over a couple of days, using

two point-and-shoot cameras. Intent on creating images the men could send home to relatives, the photographers used a vernacular snapshot aesthetic, adding borders that were influenced by the smartphone photo-editing apps used by some of the men they had met. “This project wasn’t born as a report,” they explain. “Our work focuses on the limits of representation inherent to the photographic medium and the creation of a way to talk about that which surrounds us.” rumorepair.tumblr.com

Projects: Personal

We asked you to reflect on Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique heritage and diversity through images of its people. Here we present a selection of the 100 portraits picked for our nationwide exhibition, showing on JCDecauxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s digital network of screens in railway stations, shopping centres, high streets and bus stops throughout the land 1

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Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

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Cover of Yogananthan Britain Telling story: Tales: Portrait Vasantha

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Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

Cover story: Portrait of Britain

Portfolio: Reiner Riedler

Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

Cover story: Portrait of Britain

Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

Cover story: Portrait of Britain

Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

Cover story: Portrait of Britain

Portfolio: Reiner Riedler

Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

Portrait of Britain prints Portrait of Britain is showing across portrait digital screens UK-wide throughout September. All 100 selected images can be seen together on a dedicated website, along with further details about the subjects they capture. Most of the photographs are available to buy, priced from £25 for a postcard-size print up to £120 for a limited edition A3 print. portraitofbritain.uk jcdecaux.co.uk

Portrait of Britain: Cover Story

We asked you to show us the modern face of Britain. And while much has happened in the six months since to challenge longheld notions about our national identity, the 100 portraits chosen provide a reflection on who we really are, away from the rhetoric of politics and the discourse of division. Envisaged as an exhibition by the people, of the people and for the people, Portrait of Britain was initiated as an open call for photographs that celebrate the country’s unique heritage and diversity. Selected from nearly 4000 entries, the winning portraits capture young and old, reflecting not just the multiformity of British people, but also the myriad of styles and approaches to contemporary photographic portraiture. There is formality and craft in photographs such as Phil Sharp’s profile view of musician and producer Dave Okumu, which features on our cover. Others are more casual, a moment observed and captured, like Celia Topping’s photograph of her son meeting his newborn brother for the first time. There are portraits that directly refer to the many nuances of contemporary British culture, such as Annie Collinge’s picture of Emily, dressed up for a regular meetup of the Chester, Liverpool and Manchester Lolita group. And there are photographs that seem to hark back to a different era, people and places that have changed little

in recent years and decades, such as Frank, captured at his secondhand car dealership by Shara Henderson. For the most part, Portrait of Britain is a celebration of the ordinary man or woman on the street. But there are stars among them. Some are familiar names, such as Stephen Hawking and award-winning grime artist Stormzy. Others are leaders in their fields, such as Barbara Judge, the first female chair of the Institute of Directors, or photography legend Don McCullin. And there are unsung heroes, like Mick Ellis, who was watch manager at the London Fire Brigade on 7/7, attending the aftermath of the bus bomb at Tavistock Square. Among the portraits are celebrations of the circle of life, such as Nicola with her newborn Jemima, from a series by Jenny Lewis titled One Day Young, and tributes to survival, including Jamie McGregor Smith’s photograph of a young woman recently given the all-clear following chemotherapy treatment. And while we were looking for individual images that collectively reflect on the people of Britain and their sense of place and experiences, many of the selected photographs are taken from wider series that reflect on a particular place or group or community, created over months and years. For example, two of the 100 selected portraits come from Chris O’Donovan’s series, Never Say Die, a portrait of Jaywick Sands in north Essex, which six years ago ranked as the most deprived neighbourhood in England. Peter and Jim, two of the Forever Boys photographed by Dylan Collard, are volunteers made up of former engineers and technicians restoring a three-storey steam engine at the Kempton Railway Museum. Simon Martin’s photograph of three girls taking part in a Miss Sittingbourne contest is taken from a wider project, Bearing Fruit, documenting the Kent town as it experiences gentrification and the possibility of large-scale development. The result is public art on a huge scale – a nationwide exhibition that puts the country’s citizens centre stage, in high streets, shopping precincts and railway stations throughout September. Positioned within iconic retail and transport hubs such as The Bullring, Bluewater, St Pancras and Edinburgh Waverley, the 100 selected portraits are displayed across JCDecaux’s digital network of screens. These portraits confront the public with a reflection of themselves as they go about their daily business – shown in place of the models and celebrities that usually grace advertising screens, everyday people are raised to the status of heroes.

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