Before we start, full disclosure: I’m not anti old ads. I quite like them. But weirdly, a surprising number of creatives leaders don’t. At least, they say they don’t in public, I’m sure in private they must have a cheeky flip through the odd One Show annual now and again? They put out phrases next to their profiles like ‘All about the new’, ‘Future facing creative’, ‘Forwards, not backwards’ ‘I never look back’. It sounds so cool. Frankly, it makes meRead more
Posts tagged: #Richard Avedon
GREEN BOOKS: New Yorker Ads 4.
The Advertising Standards Council wouldn’t let that title pass. I guess it was my intent when I cello-taped it to the cover. There are a few old New Yorker ads in there, but the majority are English, from the early seventies. It’s odd collection, looking at it now is a bit like wandering through a car boot sale. There’s the finds that have famous attached, so may be worth something: 1. Illustrator/Artist Glen Baxter’s Gilbey’s Gin ads. 2. Photographer ArtRead more
GREEN BOOKS: New Yorker Ads 3.
Another batch of fertilizer. That’s not a euphemism by the way, just a reminder that ideas grow from ideas, they rarely appear out of the blue. I sometimes hear people say ‘I’m all about tomorrow, I never look back…I’m like an arrow heading towards the future’. It sounds bloody exciting. Then I look at their output, and it often feels so…so, soul-less gimmicky…nothingy. Like it or not, the truth is that jobs, like most jobs, are less about inventing thanRead more
Hands Up Who’s Heard Of Norman Seeff?
Taking good portraits isn’t as easy as it looks. The instant a camera appears people change, they stop being themselves and attempt to become someone else. Sucking in cheeks, arching an eyebrow or tilting their head to the preferred angle. Take a look at the profile pictures on Facebook, they look like they were taken a split second after someone popped a balloon behind them, or they’ve just spotted a long-lost friend from Junior School, surprise seems to be ‘in’Read more
GRREN BOOKS: Photography 1.
Another green scrapbook. This was what was floating my photography boat in the mid-nineties.Read more
IN-CAMERA 5: Graham Ford.
Where did you grow up? South East London When did you take your first picture? When I was eleven. Then I asked for a camera for my fifteenth birthday. One of my brothers showed me how develop a film and to make a contact print. I was completely absorbed by photography for the next 40 years. What was your first job? Aged 18, I spent two weeks in an ice cream warehouse, at minus 20 degrees. It paid for my newRead more
IN-CAMERA 1: Brian Griffin.
You grew up in the land of the Brum? I was actually born in the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, although I grew up in the Black Country in a town called Lye. Art College? I worked in engineering until I was 21, so as a mature student I studied at Manchester Polytechnic School of Photography. Did they teach you anything useful? How to lose your virginity and smoke. When did you take your first picture? As an amateur around 1965,Read more
GREEN BOOKS: Photography 2.
Tim Berners Lee; what an absolute rascal. Not only did he shaft the chaps at Yellow Pages, the manufacturers of Fax machines and the purveyors of XXX filth in the Soho district of London, he’s made scrapbooks virtually extinct. Their numbers are dwindling, reportedly below those of the Snow Leopard. Before you could simply call up a hundreds images for any photographer or illustrator you care to mention, you could only reference those images if you owned them. Which meant; a) BuyingRead more
O’CONNOR DOWSE: A successful ad.
It’s one of the first campaigns I ever made. The agency was Cromer Titterton, my writer was Alastair Wood, the typographer was Andy Dymock and the photographer was Duncan Sim. But the key person involved was the photographer’s assistant, a scruffy, curly-haired Brummie called ‘Malc’. We shot for three weeks to get the three shots above. Malc was treated like a 17th century slave. We shot in the freezing, windy Highlands of Scotland, at the end of the day DuncanRead more