Book Details
Title: SKETCHES OF CUBA - is a Limited Edition sketchbook (only 20 available)
Date: 2017
DIMENSIONS: 19'5 X 14 inches (50 pages )
Signed and numbered Limited Edition collectors sketchbook - (each one comes with an original collage in the centre)
This series of portraits have been created thanks to repeated visits to the island of Cuba over a period of twenty years, starting with the first trip back in 1995 commissioned by the National Union of Miners (N.U.M) to the most recent trip in 2009 inspired by a cigar aficionado. This book strives to communicate the essence of each journey and has been edited and constructed using a scrapbook style documentation that the photographer started working on in 1995 and has kept updating regularly until 2012. Using a detailed notebook method of cataloguing Jenkins has devised a way of keeping the work alive, he has structured the layout of the notebook in exactly the correct order of how each journey took place year after year.
Allan Jenkins has been taking photographs in Cuba since 1995. In his nine trips to the Caribbean Island he has produced this insightful series of portraits which capture a unique and personal vision of the Cuban people and their environment. By focusing on different social groups, Allan evokes unseen aspects of this fascinating society that we know so little about and it's people.
Book Details
Title: THE UNSEEN CUBA
Date: 2014
DIMENSIONS: 12 X 12 inches
This series of portraits have been created thanks to repeated visits to the island of Cuba over a period of twenty years, starting with the first trip back in 1995 commissioned by the National Union of Miners (N.U.M) to the most recent trip in 2009 inspired by a cigar aficionado. This book strives to communicate the essence of each journey and has been edited and constructed using a scrapbook style documentation that the photographer started working on in 1995 and has kept updating regularly until 2012. Using a detailed notebook method of cataloguing Jenkins has devised a way of keeping the work alive, he has structured the layout of the notebook in exactly the correct order of how each journey took place year after year.
Allan Jenkins has been taking photographs in Cuba since 1995. In his nine trips to the Caribbean Island he has produced this insightful series of portraits which capture a unique and personal vision of the Cuban people and their environment. By focusing on different social groups, Allan evokes unseen aspects of this fascinating society that we know so little about and it's people.
Book Details
Title: BEHIND THE SCENES OF STILL LIFE
Date: 2019
DIMENSIONS: 12 X 12 inches
This is a Fine Art approach book, demonstrating techniques and the working process at the Artists own studio. It’s an insightful and thoroughly detailed book in which the viewer will witness step by step demonstrations of capturing the essence of objects through a discipline ,from initial stages All the way to the final printing techniques.
Book Details
Title: ORGANIC PHOTOGRAPHY NOTEBOOK
Date: 2016
DIMENSIONS: 12 X 12 inches
All of his Notebooks are a way of storing ideas, studies and documenting the work in progress. In these pages we are presented with a raw view behind the scenes of the development of a personal style and the artist's way of channelling inspirational moments.
Allan has made sense of his own photographs through these sketches and ideas in the traditional analogue methods that he practices. The processes used to depict the subject matter are a combination of vintage 19th century printing techniques, all early photographic printing methods , such as the"Cyanotype" and "Van Dyke Brown" process . All the prints are handmade and the alchemy dominates the effect. By making annotations and an orderly approach in the notebooks, the Artist has managed to highlight his personal approachto creativity and arrive at his final decisions.
With photographic test strips ,contact sheets and words each page contains a variety of insightful visual references and influences that build gradually into a body of work.
The personal theme and style is developed through repetition ,practice and continuity and is recorded in the pages over a period of time.
Combined with the search for inspiration and the need to keep track of essential ideas. The layouts are constantly updated and kept in a chronological working order , this is to keep track and make sense of the works direction , where it started and where it's heading and all the details in between.
The organic photography notebook is based on natural forms , Still life , nature and figurative studies the link between all subjects is natural beauty , shape And form . The vision of the artist is to depict grace , peace and harmony through studies of curves , patterns and textures that have been arranged to create balance and flow . The intention of the work is to allow the viewer to meditate upon everyday elements and see them in a new light.
The connection between nature and the notebook's subject matter are linked by the style of shooting and the vintage printing techniques that have been chosen to create a painterly effect.
Book Details
Title: NUDE PHOTOGRAPHY NOTEBOOK
Date: 2008
DIMENSIONS: 10'5 X 8'5 inches
This is a fine art photography book that breaks new grounds, Photographer, Allan Jenkins, giving us a backstage view of his creative process.
The book falls into three sections: an introductory part on artistic creativity ("Inspiration", "Ideas"), a middel section ("Photographs") focusing on the nude - the subject matter of a lot of Jenkins's photography - and a final chapter on the photographic techniques employed to produce these images. Hence, in concept the "Nude Notebook" is actually very similar to another recently published book - Julieanne Kost's "Window Seat: The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking" - that features a very similar architecture. But whilst the latter suffered from a lack of balance in the treatment of its subject matter, the Ephraums/Jenkins volume feels like a more genuine, more nuanced and better thought out effort.
A lot of that coherence is undoubtedly due to the notebook format that the Artist has chosen here. In navigating between Jenkins' tasteful and suggestive nude images (produced via contact printing from large format negatives via the cyanotype process), facsimile pages from his sketch- and notebooks and some colour images from the artist's studio and darkroom, one gets a feeling for the flow of ideas, the way in which images are shaped and the personality of the photographer.
I would finally like to point out that the book has been very carefully produced. It has been printed on a fairly thick stock of paper with a surface texture that mimicks the baryta paper traditionally used for silver halide printing. My copy was a hardback version that came in a very neat slipcase: it stands out nicely in my fairly large collection of photo books.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is working creatively with images and wishes to deepen his or her artistic vision.
Book Details
Title: MATT LIVSEY HAMMOND - Architectural metal work and design
Date: 2016
DIMENSIONS: 12 X 12 inches
Each page displays samples of interiors in lavish homes and a combination of MLH personal drawings and designs.
I worked closely with Hammond over a period of 25 years and was able to capture the essence of his craft and metal work skills from his beginnings to current day .
The book is a biography and story telling of the Artists work from production to insatallation at it's final stages.
www.mattlivseyhammond.co.uk
Book Details
Title: THE TOWN OF TEQUILA - Mexico
Date: 2010
DIMENSIONS: 12 X 12 inches
An insightful vision of the environment and people of the town of Tequila in Jalisco (Mexico) Allan Jenkins aims to capture the essence of the rarely seen aspects of this fascinating industry that we know so little about, from its workers to its local inhabitants.
Thank's to Albion advertising Agency, Allan was able to get access and document the most popular Tequila factory in the World (Jose Cuervo). Displaying the camaraderie of working men and the true character of the people that live in the the town of Tequila.
In 1758, Antonio de Cuervo received a land grant from the King of Spain in the Mexican state of Jalisco. He built a small factory on this land. His descendant, José María Guadalupe Cuervo, used the land to build a distillery for tequila production in 1795. The distillery was later named Fabrica La Rojeña. The tequila was exported to the United States for the first time in 1873. In 1900, José Cuervo Labastida decided to brand the tequila as José Cuervo. The company is now owned and run by heirs of the Cuervo family, the Beckmann family.
Book Details
Title: THE MAKING OF A LEGIONNAIRE
Date: 2014
DIMENSIONS: 12 X 12 inches
The French Foreign Legion hold a long and heroic record. A very well trained and equipped modern military Division, with specialised mountain, para, and artillery sub units, with a lot of well trained individuals. The working language is French, and all commands and directions are given in that language.
They fight any where, any time, anybody.........True mercenaries, paid to fight. This book puts emphasis on the multitude of different Nationalities all fighting together and bodind to make a Legion of Foreigners.
The book documents and captures each unity between the different cultures all fighting under one flag.
At retirement, they have the choice of living in France, as a citizen, or in their own home country, on a life time pension, from the French Government. Many choose to live in Sardinia.
To view the unfamiliar through creative eyes , as these are two worlds apart , civilian life and commando special forces , a portrayal of human emotion through the eyes of an observer , enhanced by effect and beautiful photographic printing techniques.
The images are shot on both Analogue film and digital cameras capturing the inside secrets of the legionnaires daily lives.
My goal for the project was to study of the human spirit through portraiture and the camaraderie of men. Photographic captures to gain an understanding of the bond of brotherhood created by all nationalities who join the Legion and how they stand shoulder to shoulder to operate as an elite force before going into all danger zones behind enemy lines in inhospitable situations.