I had a lengthy discussion with my friend Molaroid (who runs London Kicks ) about the state of modern photography. Lets be honest and brutal here. It’s boring as fuck. Now, I personally don’t believe it’s all down to do with the photographers themselves. A quick peek on many portfolios and you tend to see very strong, very pleasing images that you actually think “fuck, I wish I took that” – yet you go to their section of client work.. and it’s safe, mundane.. generally all looks the same. You can’t tell one band from the other usually. “Quick lads, stand in a line and all pull faces” kinda shots that don’t really push my buttons.. though I am guilty of said malpractice, I shot the Rakes for a cover for a mag in the states just like that. Oh the shame.




Generally people on the “outside” tend to think photographers, especially fashion photographers in London, make shit loads of money and generally all live the life of cobrasnake, hitting all the big parties and chillaxing with Kate Moss. It isn’t really like that I’m afraid. We generally get paid last, the least and if your lucky..well… if you are lucky you will get paid. Back in the day when magazines could get away with not paying you.. Because it was actually genuinely good exposure, have gone. Now even the smallest magazine try and pull the “it will be a great test shot opportunity” - excuse me love? I want to fucking eat thanks.




London is the worst for it, Europe much better. America are alright but generally pay less. (from my experience).




Is it the onslaught of Digital Photography that has started the slow decline of my favorite medium? I don’t fucking know, but I wouldn’t rule it out. Any Johnny come Lately right out of uni can walk into a Job by offering themselves for free. Magazine gets second rate work, Johnny gets portfolio fodder and somewhere a pro is having to shoot a look book for pennies.




There are no heroes anymore. Where are this generations Bourdins? Newtons? Mapplethorpes? – Everything looks the same. Everything is a re-hash of a re-hash and it’s got to that saturation point that I can open the pages of say.. i-D, Dazed… and nothing jumps out at me. Nothing has personality. I don’t look at a shoot and instantly recognize a signature style. I see a shoot and say to my self.. “oh.. is this a Terry shoot?” nope. Its another person that I’ve never heard of and probably not likely to see in print again.




We need heroes.

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I'm currently working on my new website (about time) and I was thinking about what to have on the thing... having the 1095 on my portfolio back in 2003 was a very good choice back then and has been copied numerous times now - but it's not really enough anymore in this day and age where everything is connected and people demand information on demand, so im going to share my facebook, twitter and maybe if im crazy enough my skype. - you will be able to twitter me through naughtyjames.com.. which will probably get very annoying, but oh well, right!




Facebook Group - here (become a fan! haha)


Twitter - here


Muxtape - here

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I had some hack phone me this evening from (name removed) Magazine asking me to dish dirt on my old friend Peaches, who ran into a spot of bother over the weekend. I told them to bugger off before they could finish the first sentence, but afterwards I thought to myself.. how in gods name did they get my mobile phone number?? It's fairly new, and my number changers often.. I've had two since P was round my house everyday. The mind boggles.

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3:18am, Monday morning.

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