On a hot summer day in Manhattan, I had a chance to kick it with Janette Beckman for a few hours.
In this episode we talk about thinking on your feet, the skeleton key of politeness, giving back and the wonderful stories behind Janette’s documentary portrait photography.
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Show Notes
Bond Street | Blick | Dashwood Books | OVO Store | Robert Michael Mapplethorpe | The Bowery | 1983 | Franklin Street | Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – The Message | The Mudd Club | The Sex Pistols | Melody Maker Magazine | Hardships Makes Artists | Salt-N-Pepa | Alphabet City | Dapper Dan | Making Plans for Contingencies | Hasselblad | Do What You Do | Portrait Photography is a True Collaboration | Huge Tracy Chapman Fan | Boy George | Vivienne Westwood | The Police Album Cover | Every Shoot is Important | Paying Your Dues | Gold Teeth Short | NY See | Avant Yard Music Showcase | Arturo Vega | Trip to New York with Mom | The Pyramid Club | Trafalgar Square | Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music | Johnny Rotten | Diane Arbus | Photography that Takes You out of Your Echo Chamber of Comfort | Give Backs and Give To | Julie Grahame | aCurator | God’s Love We Deliver
East LA, 1983 | Hoya Maravilla Gang | In The Zone | People Can Sense Fear | Brooklyn Girls’ Fight Club | Resting Bitch Face | The Mash-Up | Cey Adams | Howl! Happening | For the Love of the Culture | CLAW | The Fahey/Klein Gallery | Everybody Eats | Bill Adler | The NWA Story | Ice Cube | No Vaseline | Paper Magazine | Kim Hastreiter | Downtown Cool | Bill Cunningham | Keith Haring | ICP | Vikki Tobak | Levi’s | Treat People with Respect | Be Kind to People | Be Humble | Murals in the Market Detroit | Shooting for Dior | Given A Playground | Do what I Do | Dogtown And Z-Boys | Jocks and Nerds | José James | Café Royal Books | Rebels: From Punk to Dior | Museum of the City of New York | Jamel Shabazz | The Difference Between a Picture and a Photograph | Nikon Photo Contest | A Good Photo is One The Moves You | Neville Brody | DRAGO | Fresh Eyes | Kept it to the People | Polite and Audacity | Think on Your Feet | Stay Ready so you Don’t Have to Get Ready | Candice Lola
Pre-Order – Rebels: From Punk to Dior
About Janette Beckman
British-born photographer Janette Beckman began her career at the dawn of punk rock working for publications such as The Face and Melody Maker. She shot bands from The Clash to Boy George as well as three Police album covers and documented the youth culture of the era.
Moving to NYC in 1983, Beckman was drawn to the underground hip-hop scene where she photographed the pioneers of the culture such as RUN DMC, Slick Rick, Salt-N-Pepa, Grandmaster Flash, LL Cool J, and Big Daddy Kane.
Beckman has published five books: ‘Rap, Portraits & Lyrics of a Generation of Black Rockers’, ‘Made In The UK The Music of Attitude 1977-1983’, ‘The Breaks, Stylin’ and Profilin’ 1982- 1990′, ‘El Hoyo Maravilla’ and ‘The MashUp, Hip Hop Photos Remixed by Iconic Graffiti Artists’.
Her work has been shown in galleries and museums worldwide including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles and Kunsthal Rotterdam, amongst others. Janette Beckman’s work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, the Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe, France, and the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, Japan.
Her dedication to documenting the outliers of society remains evident in the works she creates surrounding subjects such as Manhattan based dirt bike gang, The Go Hard Boyz, an illegal girl fight club in Brownsville, New York, and the hard-nosed rodeo riders of the River City Rodeo in Omaha, Nebraska.
Beckman’s commercial work includes assignments for clients such as Apple, Dior, Levi’s, Schott, and Shinola.
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