Rankin

John Rankin Waddell, born 1966, is a contemporary fashion and portrait photographer. Born and brought up in St Albans, Waddell uses the work name 'Rankin' for his photo and video work. His original interests faltered during his time at University of Falmouth, as he decided he wanted to peruse a life of photography, he joined the London College of Printing. Since forming his first magazine 'Dazed & Confused' with friend Jefferson Hack, the Hertfordshire born photographer has founded several magazines and established his name firmly in the photographic timeline, being able to say to say he has taken photos of may celebrities such as Kate Moss, Queen Elizabeth II, Dizzee Rascal and many more. 

Upon seeing this photo for the first time I immediately thought back to an artist I admire and have studied before: David Bailey. I think in this photo Rankin has tried to evoke emotion from the subject, rap artist Dizzee Rascal, by having him perform a vulgar gesture towards the camera. I have said several times that I admire Bailey's work and would like to peruse my portrait work in a similar way to which he has. I believe perhaps Rankin has tried to replicate his work to an extent that he tried to incorporate the simplistic background allowing large amounts of negative space. This allows the viewer to be draw straight to the subject without being distracted by anything. Also, Bailey is famous for showing a lot of emotion in his photographs, Rankin has done this in his photo. One thing that is vastly different from first sight from Rankin and Bailey's work is that obviously Bailey worked predominately with black and white and Rankin shoots more colour, though there is plenty of monochromatic work amongst his portfolio also. 

This photo is one I like, despite the fact I am not personally into the excessive make up when it comes to photo shoots; in fact I am very against it. I believe there is something quite fake about having the model wear excessive amounts of make up and in this case face paint and long fake eye lashes. However in fashion photography is is very rare not to see a model caked in loads of make up. It is rare I will find a  photo like this interesting. However, what Rankin has done in this photo with the face paint I believe has proved to be effective purely for the fact the background is black. If the background was white, I would be less inclined to like this photo. The subject pops out of the background, and if I am right, I assume Rankin has tried to make her look almost like a demon - with a very slight chinese/japanese tint to the photo. I say this because I feel the subject reminds me of these chinese/japanese demons you see in fairy tails and comic books. One thing I'm not completely sure of is why the subject is wearing a black/dark navy beanie. I believe this detracts slightly from what otherwise would be a very powerful image.   

DESTROY

Rankin's Destroy was a project he underwent where he asked the subjects of his portraits to 'destroy' the photograph he takes of them. In this way he asks his subject to portray themselves in any way that they choose fit.  The whole project was in partnership with  and in celebration of the Youth Music Week. Ranking had his fair share of celebrities in the music world to shoot: ranging from Little Boots to Alex Zane, Andre 3000,  Example and Florence and the Machine. All of the shoots were printed off and sold as original prints at auction. The photos were also printed off in a book and these books can still be bought online today, 4 years after the project. The idea of the project was to make money for Youth Music and raising money to give support to those who needed it. When seeing the original photos from each shoot it became apparent that Rankin went for as basic photos as possible, I suppose it was in this way that the music artists were given more space to be creative. One thing about the photos is that Rankin probably could have used them in his own portfolio before they were 'destroyed', as I feel that they were powerful images to start off with. Rankin uses very creative lighting when doing his photoshoots. One of my favourite images of his where he used a strong headlight to illuminate the front of the subject's face, is his photo of singer songwriter Seal.

I love this type of lighting that hits the subject's face leaving a lot of the negative space completely black. When I first saw this project I was unaware of the fact it was done by the Youth Music Project. I firstly felt that the photos could have many different meanings to them. I felt that it may have had something linking in with the fact it was paired up with a youth project. Perhaps the artists who destroyed their portraits were trying to revert back to a childish state where they have more artistic creativeness. That's quite a bold thing to say considering the are famous for their creativeness and individuality as celebrities. However I felt that perhaps by reverting back to a childish state they were able to capture some type of imagination that they had as children and allowed them to make more interesting and 'in your face' images. This was true in part, but when I read up and watched some interviews with Rankin himself, I saw that he was trying to capture the hidden personalities of the musicians. Rankin explained that there was a massive fabricated lie that the media seems to portray of musicians and we are forced to believe these lies because it's all we really see of them. By this project, Rankin was trying to make the subject's express what they felt and show people what they were like as an actual person. Rankin said himself he was lucky enough to choose from a variety of his own favourite artists. We experimented in class with doing something similar. We took photos of ourselves on the Macs and then destroyed them by any means we felt right.