This is not an email + Milan Swolfs
This originally appeared as part of my weekly Prime Lenses Newsletter. You can sign up for a weekly update here.
This is not an atlas
This week I repurchased a copy of a book I first bought 20 years ago. It was stolen from me almost immediately.
The book is called “This is not and Atlas” by a former colleague called Warren Hutchinson. These days he runs a successful agency but twenty years ago, in a time before ubiquitous smart phones with high res camera functionality, the rules were simple. He and a friend competed to snap a photo of a place with World in the title. You had to have a camera with you at the time. You couldn’t go back and snap it later. I loved it and remember buying it at a launch event held at the offices of the agency I worked for at the time. It was great fun and after the party I went home via Piccadilly Circus, stopping at Burger King for a late dinner. At the back of the restaurant I remember seeing a young woman using a hands free kit on a phone. She stood out at the time, wire connected to phone and headset and she seemed to be talking into it intensely, holding the mic close to her mouth. I moved on, devoured my burger, bag between my legs, finished my meal, and that’s when I realised my bag had gone along with my first ever digital camera, my company issue laptop and signed copy of the book. Twenty years later and I have rescued a copy that was let go by a library after being loaned out once in 2005. I’ve not seen Warren in years but maybe he’ll sign it for me one day.
It’s a great idea for a project though, I wonder if we could do something like this collectively as a community of Prime Lenses Pod People? Email me or contact me through socials. I think this could be cool. Just have to pick a subject.
Lot 34
Continuing the subject of right place, right time, if you’re looking for an investment in some photo related art then why not bid on this exciting collection of Polaroids shot by photographer Ilpo Musto. It features, well, everyone!! A real who’s who of 70s and 80s popular culture icons captured on over 350 Polaroids. At the time of writing the reserve has been met and it stands at £38k. I’ll be intrigued to see what it goes for in the end. I’d love to see an exhibition of the photos.
This week on the podcast
This week I spoke to Milan Swolfs and some of the topics we touched on were;