Stuart Black

Watch Short Documentaries About Great London Photographers

Getting behind the stories of photographers and how they take their pictures, FullBleed is a recently-launched YouTube channel that probes the work of several interesting London snappers.

This week sees the addition of Jenny Lewis, the new film One Day Young featured here as an exclusive. Lewis began taking pictures of mothers from Hackney with their babies only hours after they were born. She has since taken this idea to Malawi for WaterAid and here in the FullBleed film, she poignantly describes the contrasting conditions versus the similarities of the proud faces of the mothers from both Africa and London.

Other films in the FullBleed portfolio include one about Bob Mazzer, who has spent 40 years recording life on the London Underground. His tireless body of work features some extraordinary images from the 70s and 80s which capture the late night theatre of the tube system perfectly. Mazzer calls it: “the big underground party that was happening 24 hours a day.”

Also worth checking out is Dougie Wallace and his Harrodsburg project. This Glaswegian came to London and was struck by the mega-wealth around Kensington and Knightsbridge and how it has physically corrupted the people who live there. “It’s about the 1% and also about the crazy wealth gap, the luxury goods and fast supercars next door to foodbanks. I’m not sneering, I’m just shining a light and taking pictures of what I see.”

FullBleed aims to document photographic culture and explain the artistry behind photography through a regular series of original short films. It’s revealing to hear James Fry, Oasis’s photographer laureate, talking about how one of his album covers was named worst of the year but how cool he thought that was. There’s also Paddy Summerfield on his moving and revealing series Mother & Father, which shows his parents at the end of their lives.

Future films will include one about the Lost In Music photography project and exhibition which launched recently at the Print Space in Shoreditch. You can also see the featured artists picking their favourite photos in the Apocalypse Pictures section, which basically amounts to a series of mini-masterclasses.

See more London Shorts here.