Brian Griffin, one of the most creative, innovative and successful photographers and moviemakers I have ever had the pleasure of spending time with, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to cover the costs of publishing his latest book, POP, a chronicle and collection of his remarkable achievements in album cover photography.
POP will be a must-have amongst photography books, revealing the scope of the work and vision of this Black Country outsider who made off to the London Dockland’s area of Rotherhithe to set up studio and revolutionize corporate photography, popular music photography, advertising photography and the art of photographic portraiture.
Brian Griffin’s visionary, minimalist, dense-with-meaning photography appeared as a shining light in the gloom of the corporate world of 1970s Britain. One of the greatest magazine art directors ever, Roland Shenk, spotted Brian Griffin’s maverick talent and commissioned him to contribute to the pages of Management Today, one of several brilliantly designed magazines in the Haymarket Press stable along with advertising industry publication Campaign.
I came across Management Today in the magazine archives of a university art school I was deeply frustrated by, and found a kindred spirit in Brian Griffin, an outsider in the world in which he was working and revolutionizing. His work in the corporate sector, then the music world and then in advertising stood out for his singular vision and rare ability to create something extraordinary out of almost nothing at all.
My last visit to Brian Griffin’s Rotherhithe studio far too many years ago was at the point where he was about to give up photography for directing television commercials, celebrating his transition from one creative field to the other with a big bang of a photography exhibition.
Since those days, I am pleased to say, Brian has become a photographer once again and has enjoyed a string of exhibitions of photographs old and new at festivals and galleries all over the northern hemisphere.
Alas, no gallery or photo festival director in this part of the world has seen fit to invite him to show here, to our very great loss. Pledge to Brian Griffin’s Kickstarter campaign for POP, page through the book when you receive it, and you, too, will wonder why.
Then, perhaps, you will also wonder whether Mr Griffin’s next major book publishing project will be a compendium of his equally revolutionary images in the fields of advertising, corporate, magazine and portrait photography.
Links:
- Brian Griffin
- British Journal of Photography – Never surrender: Brian Griffin about his life as a photographer
- Campaign – Haymarket 50 Years: 50 Glorious Moments.
- Digital Photography Review – Photographer Profile – Brian Griffin
- Gilbert and Paul – Campaign magazine and the mysterious Mr Shenk
- It’s Nice That – Brian Griffin’s haunting new photography book documents paths that led to the Holocaust
- Karin Gottschalk – Brian Griffin and the Industrial Revolution
- Kickstarter – ‘POP’ a book of the music photography by Brian Griffin
- L’Oeil de la Photographie – Brian Griffin : Capitalist Realism at Steven Kasher Gallery « I can look at a horse and see a chair »
- Shutterstock Blog – How Brian Griffin’s Innovative Portraits Upended Photography
- Stuff from the Loft – IN-CAMERA 1: Brian Griffin. – Advertising art director Dave Dye interviews Brian Griffin.
- The Guardian – Photographer Brian Griffin’s best shot
Header Image:
Portrait of music producer George Martin by Brian Griffin.
