Last day recap: London Street Style with Mark Lebon
Few world renowned fashion photographers will tell you that they started their career sweeping floors in a building site, or that they had Boy George style looks for them before becoming a musician. But for our final instalment of citizen reports last week, British Fashion Photographer Mark Lebon spoke candidly about his early days starting out and how his career developed. It seems it was all a happy accident and he was surrounded by interesting creative people who were his friends, muses, subjects business partners and confidants. He has since shot some of the biggest names in fashion, music and film around – and he usually snapped them before they shot to fame.
Mark Lebon is a down to earth, fashion icon in his own right. At over 50 years old, he still seems to maintain a youthful artistic spirit and passion about London and the fashion scene. He shared his career path, taking guests on a journey through the London fashion scene of the late 80s and 90s from his enrolment in a Communication Course in the east end, to his early days working with i-D and The Face. He dabbled between film and photography, setting up his own production company early on. And he wore many hats throughout his early career – running night clubs, working as a fashion agent representing emerging designers, producing films and honing his photography skills. Throughout this he says his life has a sense of ‘controlled chaos’ as he hovered around the street scene in London. ‘Nick Knight [Show Studio] is my peer. We started out at the same time. I was always so in awe at how controlled he was and is’, explained Mark.
When asked about the evolution of photography and the difference between digital and film, Mark hands down prefers film. He loves shooting on paper. He also reminded guests that ‘hey, just remember, without electricity, digital cannot exist!’.
To check out Mark’s work, visit http://marklebon.com/
day eight recap: Street Style Photography – London and Beyond with Eddie Otchere
On Wednesday evening, for our final Workshop session, photographer and LCC alum Eddie Otchere shared a history and commentary of Street Photography. He took us back to the late 1800’s and the ‘Flaneur’, the gentlemanly wanderer who strolled freely along the streets of Paris. It was this moment in history when we started capturing and recording street style. “Go out and lose yourself in the streets,” explained Eddie, as he shared a chronological photo history of street images. “Any snapshot taken now is just a snapshot, but think about it in 100 years’ time. It will tell a story and have meaning and context”.
Eddie Otchere himself an established street photographer uses the streets as a backdrop to capture his acclaimed images for the music industry, sports brands and club culture. He’s a native South Londoner and often inspired by that neighborhood and the music scene down there – capturing the colorful, local drum n’ bass culture.
Eddie shared a few of his favorite spots in London to shoot on the streets. He highlighted places like Monument where you get sweeping views of the city and how great it could be to visit every year and take a photograph of the sky line from the roof top to see how the landscape changes. Brunswick House Café is a cool and quirky place to capture interesting people and things. And you might like to pop into Silver Print, a camera shop in London Bridge that sells all kinds of photography goods.
To keep the ‘romance of photography’, Eddie suggested getting a disposable camera (£5!). “It takes great pictures and the process of having to get the film developed and not knowing what will come out is exciting”.
Why not assume the roll of the Flaneur and go out and show us your best street photos. It could be a piece of street art, a person or people engaged in conversation, a scene without human presence or anything of your choice. You can tweet, blog or post #citizenMreports or email us at citizenMreports@citizenm.com.
meet: Mark Lebon
Have you missed previous workshops and talks? Here is a recap:
Images from the Front Lines by Carol Allen Storey
Alternative London Street Sports by Dan Edwardes from Parkour Generations.
Everything is Art by Mr. Bingo
The Changing Faces of London by Homer Sykes
Street Food Revolution by Jamie Berger & Victoria Stewart
Tonight #citizenMreports is hosting the guest speaker fashion photographer Mark Lebon.
Mark Lebon is a world renowned artist and photographer A key contributor to the ‘Buffalo’ movement which embraced multi-cultural 1980s London and began to depict this diversity in fashion photography, Mark was one of the first photographers to snap the one and only Madonna.
He studied at West Sussex College of Art and Design and North East London Polytechnic and started his career working for magazines such as i-D and The Face. Since then his clients have included Rifat Ozbek, Katherine Hamnet, John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood. Mark Lebon also runs Crunch Productions, working in fashion, advertising, broadcasting, and music promotion. He currently teaches fashion photography at the London College of Fashion, as well as having contributed early photo blogs to showstudios.com, he has continued work as a filmmaker and photographer.
Join us tonight and hear from Mark Lebon on “London Street Style: out of the gutter, onto the page and into the street”, at citizenM London Bankside. There are few seats left, to sign up, email us at citizenMreports@citizenM.com.
credit photo: Mark Lebon
day six recap: The Changing Faces of London with Homer Sykes
Yesterday renowned documentary and portrait photographer Homer Sykes kicked off week two of citizenM Reports. Having worked for The Telegraph, Sunday Times, Time and Newsweek, Homer took the group through his incredible photos of changing London decade by decade, from the 1970s through the present.
Homer has captured everything from the shops along Brick Lane and workers strikes in the 1970s, the decadent London clubs and punk scene of the 1980s to the pre-construction setting at Olympic Park leading up to the Games.
What makes a photograph great according to Homer? Its all about opening your eyes and not missing the moment! Take note of all the small details that place you in a particular moment in time. Tell a story with every image, notice important landmarks, clothing and street signs, and always tell a story.
Show us your photos of changing London! Whether is an interesting neighbourhood or the ‘Olympic people’ (staff, tourists, Londoners) around town, we want to hear from you. Tweet, blog or post #citizenMreports or email us at citizenMreports@citizenm.com.
