Back when I got my first job in 1996, my Creative Director gave me a book to look at called ‘LaChapelle Land’ that simply astounded me. Needless to say I hunted down my own first edition numbered copy… and it takes pride of place on my bookcase at home.

‘Heaven to Hell’ is LaChapelle’s third in a trilogy that began with ‘LaChapelle Land’. The images contained within the pages and follow in the same astonishing, color-saturated, and provocative style but this time there is more of a reference to Renaissance, art history, cinema, The Bible, pornography, and the new globalized pop culture… hence the title ‘Heaven to Hell’.

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Jeanloup Sieff was born in Paris on the 3^rd of November 1933. He first started taking photographs at the age of 14, after being given a camera as a birthday present. He wanted to be a film director, but became a freelance reporter were he started working for Elle in 1955, he was just 22. In 1956 he progressed as a fashion photographer and by 1966 he worked with magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Glamour, Paris-Match, plus many more. He won a number of prizes, including the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in Paris in 1981 and Grand Prix National de la Photographie in 1992. He believed that if he had not received a camera as a birthday present, that he may have never been a photographer. He sadly died in Paris on the 20^th September 2000 aged just 66. Read more…

Barbara Kruger was the first truly postmodern artist that I discovered as an art student. Being a fan of thought-provoking art and literature and having experimented with text and image collages I was immediately struck by the power of her work. Barbara Kruger is a conceptual artist known for her stark photo-and-text collages that appropriate the language of consumer culture to comment on it. She became an artist in the early 80’s after working as head art director on Conde Nast magazines. Her art continues to speak the language of magazines and advertising, and, in addition to appearing in galleries and museums, it can be found on billboards, T–shirts, and shopping bags. She used the skills she gained as a commercial art director to stunning effect with her provocative ‘found’ black and white photographic images, slashed with red stripes of text bearing now instantly recognisable slogans such as “I shop therefore I am” and “Your body is a battleground” delivered in her trademark Futura Bold Italic typeface. These iconic works masterfully employ the look and feel of propaganda, but directly raise questions with the viewer about values, taste, stereoypes and materialism.

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One of the great things about my High School in Bradford wasn’t the fact that we were taught by Nuns and Priests… no it was the fact we had a Dark Room. Growing up I loved photography and so developing my own photographs was a natural progression for me and I would find that I could easily fly through a few hours thanks to some good music, a dark room and some recently taken black & white pictures that were snapped on my trusty Pentax ME… a camera I still own and love today.

One of the many Photographers that I studied at this time was a guy called Robert Capa, who was best known as a Photojournalist and documented wars including World war 2, The Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War. One of the reasons I loved his photographs was because of how he went against technical considerations when it came to photography and instead focused on capturing ‘the moment’… and boy! What moments he captured.

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Long hair, stubble, drives a fast car… no it’s not a rock star, it’s one of Manchester’s coolest and nicest Photographer’s, Tim Ainsworth. It’s been a while since he’s done some work for us… probably a few years, but we’re pleased to say he’s delivered a fantastic looking job for us for Swinton’s Cashback Plus.

The concept for Cashback Plus involved creating a clean graphic world populated by all the things Swinton can get you insurance for… the main idea being that the more insurance you take out with Swinton… the more Cashback you’ll get.

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An Art Director from Leeds phoned me up out of the blue one day. He’s a guy I used to work with and there’s a lot of mutual respect between us. He’s a Scouser… and to be honest, I often struggle with understanding his passionate rants.

On this particular occasion I managed to capture the words… Press Ads… Great Job… Photography… Tracey Gibbs… Use her. I’m not sure whether that last bit was a threat, and I’ve always been told that it’s not wise to upset a Scouser. So it wasn’t long before myself, Tracey and her bags of enthusiasm were sat in a room together looking through her portfolio.

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On the rare occasion that I visit my home town of Bradford, I always make a point of visiting the National Media Museum. Exhibiting there at the moment, until 27th September, is collection of photographs by one of Britain’s greatest photographers – Don McCullin.

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Red C’s Creative Director, Julian Gratton, has added yet another award to his list of accolades. He has been announced as a winner in the prestigious ‘Creatives Behind the Lens’ competition.

Julian’s picture, taken in New York in January 2007, shows an image of Peter Sellers from ‘Dr Strangelove’ that had been pasted on to a window; the window had then been broken to create the striking image you see to the left.

‘Creatives Behind the Lens’ is a Creative Review and Corbis project inviting non-professional photographers to submit unpublished photographic work and receive recognition from a jury of industry experts.

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