Volume 1, Issue 2

March 6th, 2010

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Issue No. 2 of RESPECT. is now available at bookstores and newsstands. Read the rest of this entry »

An Interview with Brent Rollins

March 10th, 2010

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The Rap-Up conducted an informative interview with Brent Rollins, best known as the visual genius behind ego trip magazine. He talks about his design aesthetic being in the spirit of hip-hop beyond signifiers like graffiti arrows, working with photography, biters, the changes in album packaging and how advances in technology are creating less canvasses for artists. Read the rest of this entry »

Kenneth Cappello Contact Sheets

March 10th, 2010

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LATE PASS: Last week, RESPECT. contributor Kenneth Cappello threw up some images on his blog, including this one of the Clipse. The story behind this photoshoot includes angry rednecks, a rainstorm and an unimpressed Pusha T. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fit it all in the magazine. But keep checking back. We’ll be posting an extended version of our conversation with KC right here. We’re pretty sure you’ll get a kick out of his experiences with R. Kelly and Mike Tyson, as well as his thoughts on Game. Read the rest of this entry »

Eyes and Hearts for Haiti

March 10th, 2010

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The work of RESPECT. contributors Janette Beckman and Danny Clinch (along with a gang of other artists) will be part of  Eyes and Hearts for Haiti, a silent auction of visual art taking place this Friday, March 12th at Aperture Studios Miami. All proceeds will be directed to Friends of the Orphans.

(vi@ Brian Smith)

Chris Buck Goes Diesel

March 10th, 2010

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RESPECT. contributor Chris Buck does great, thoughtful interviews. (You can get an ample supply of his insight by going to his site and clicking the little iron icon.) Chris’ work is quirky, just a hair shy of silly, dancing between the mundane and transcendent. Over at Heather Morton he talks about his approach to Diesel’s “Be Stupid” campaign. As always, he’s extremely practical and professional. Which is not quite what you’d expect form a guy who takes a picture of Andy Samberg high-fiving some sort of cat.

(vi@ The Reference Council)

RELATED: Lee Jeans recruits Ben Watts to shoot their Fall/Winter 2010 campaign

Malick Sidibe at Lichfield Studios

March 9th, 2010

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Mali-born documentary photographer Malick Sidibe, whose work chronicled youth life in post-colonial West Africa, will be exhibiting previously unseen images at Lichfield Studios in London from March 11th—April 16th.

(vi@ Black Nerds Network)

Notorious B.I.G. [May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997]

March 9th, 2010

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RESPECT. contributor Barron Claiborne, who took one of the most enduring—and, arguably, most iconic—pics of the King of New York, just a few days before he died, made this gun mosiac of the Notorious B.I.G. shortly after learning about the rapper’s death. You can read more about Barron’s experience with B.I.G. here.

RESPECT. Premiere Issue

November 1st, 2009

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Premiere issue is available now at Barnes and Noble and Borders.

As any professional photographer, photo editor, graphic designer or writer can attest, a lot of great images and words never make it past the edit rounds of a magazine. There’s just not enough room for everything. Even with the seemingly limitless possibilities and content populating the World Wide Web, there remain scores of visionary moments, enlightening tales and grin-worthy anecdotes that never reach you, the consumer. It’s the way things are.

But it doesn’t have to be the way things will be. Respect is about bringing you what would otherwise be left on the cutting room floor, boxed up in a studio or collecting digital dust on a hard drive. Why? Because we believe beauty is worth seeing. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Watts

October 22nd, 2009

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Acclaimed photographer Ben Watts’ recently released Lickshot—a follow-up to 2003’s well-received Big Up—is part photo book, part journal, and all vibrant, raucous, in-your-face exercise where still images spark with kinetic energy to burst and crackle on the page. And it’s not by accident. The 42-year-old limey, who now calls New York City home, has been chronicling his progress in scrapbooks since his days at Australia’s Sydney College of the Arts. “I do that for myself,” says Watts, whose latest effort registers encounters with everyone from Adrien Brody to Jay-Z. “People have always enjoyed my journals, so now I got them published for more people to see.”
So would it be safe to categorize his books as visual memoirs? “I think that’s going a little bit deep,” laughs Watts. “But they’re definitely my personal journals.”
His work may speak for itself, but he’s not too shabby either:
I was, as a teenager, really interested in cult—cult fashion, cult music, cult gear. I was like a rudeboy back in England, listening to ska music. I was really into that, and then I got into Motown, and I went from there to reggae, and then the hip-hop thing exploded and took off. When I first became exposed to it, it was, like, ’86, ’85. I just really dug the music and what was being said, and I felt like it was a natural progression [of what I had been listening to]. That became my passion.
From there I went to college, started learning photography and sort of culled any information that I was interested in—music-wise, fashion-wise, energy- wise, just feeling-wise—into my pictures, even if they didn’t have an immediate connection; sort of that street style that hip-hop represents. To me, that was the part of it that was interesting about it. Later on, when it became all about bling culture and all that stuff, it’s still interesting—but definitely not as interesting as the raw street edge that I really fell in love with.
My first book was definitely a journal dedicated to urban youth culture and street culture, but this one is more of a progression onward and [shows] more sophistication in my work. My passion certainly still remains the same, but I didn’t want to be accused of making the same book twice. I wanted it to be something that still has the thread of continuity, but to bring it into a more sophisticated genre, without alienating people who appreciated my work. The worst thing that can happen to me is for someone who appreciated my first book to pick [Lickshot] up and say, “This guy sold out. This is weak.” I put my best foot forward.

Acclaimed photographer Ben Watts’ recently released Lickshota follow-up to 2003’s well-received Big Up—is part photo book, part journal, and all vibrant, raucous, in-your-face exercise where still images spark with kinetic energy to burst and crackle on the page. And it’s not by accident. The 42-year-old limey, who now calls New York City home, has been chronicling his progress in scrapbooks since his days at Australia’s Sydney College of the Arts. “I do that for myself,” says Watts, whose latest effort registers encounters with everyone from Adrien Brody to Jay-Z. “People have always enjoyed my journals, so now I got them published for more people to see.” Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Cheuse

October 22nd, 2009
When you were doing these shots, were you just capturing moments? Or did you have this sense of history and documenting something that you felt was important? I knew something was happening, and I’m not a musical person, so the camera was my tool to pick up and get involved in the scene. It’s almost like the punk- rock ethos. I was this punk kid in New York—I wasn’t in London, I missed punk rock, so hip-hop was kind of my punk rock. Hanging out with Mike and Adam and Adam [a.k.a. the Beastie Boys], we just knew that something was kicking off. We used to go to Queens, hang out with those guys or whatever. I can’t say at the time I knew it was going to be culturally significant 20 years later. All I really knew was it was exciting, it was fun, I was working with my friends, I was doing something I love to do and it felt good. I didn’t know it was history—I didn’t even know what “history” was, in a way.
Did you have any training with a camera?
I never really knew much about technique except what I learned in junior high school at the time, because I was in school and was just sneaking off to do these things. I was reading today about Robert Frank, who’s like my “God”; he was this amazing photographer from Switzerland who came here when he was 22, and he went across America and just shot pictures with his black-and-white film. It was something like that. Specifically him and then a few other photographers in London—like Penny Smith, who was working with the Clash and people like that—inspired me to pick up the camera, throw the black-and-white film in there and not worry so much about the technique or the lighting at the moment. It was more about the feeling.
Has this changed over the years, or do you proceed with this same ethos?
To this day, it still feels like magic to me, when you send the film into the lab and it’s developed, that there’s an image at all. It’s like a magical thing between the chemicals and the silver and the gelatin and the light and that combination of elements that makes an image. And kind of the spirit of the person somehow is involved in that—it’s alchemy. I wasn’t the greatest in the darkroom as far as my printing, but there was a photographer named David Gahr, he was a real inspiration and mentor, and he used to say to me: “You’re a poet, you’re not a printer.” Now I have a great printer and I stick to the poetry.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hip-Hop Photography in the News:

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From a Former Photo Editor