Transitioning – photography between lucky accidents and scientific experiments

«That feeling when you get sent the negatives and you look at them, that is what you are working for» – Brendan Freeman on film photography

Credits
Photographer: Brendan Freeman
Styling: Riccardo Linarello
Models: Jasmijn Schutten @Wilhelmina, Billy White @Present Model Management, Casting Director: Marina Fairfax
Team: makeup and hair Maki Tanaka, set design Kimberley Harding, photo assistant Kristos Giourgas, styling assistant Mariangela Orlando, movement direction hand model Anders Hayward, printing Labyrinth Photographic

Brendan Freeman, photographer, art director and publisher in London

It stretches the opportunities for an artist to be more meticulous. It forces photographers to make active and creative decisions, and developing film allows the photography to be more valuable. «That buzz when you photograph something, that feeling when you get sent the negatives and you look at them, that is what you are working for», Brendan Freeman is a London-based photographer, art director and publisher. Freeman’s photoshoot collection for Lampoon expands the creative perspective that film photography offers. The collection by Freeman, titled Fig.1, follows the idea of fake experimentation: «In the shoot with the girl sitting at the table, the two pictures in the background are photos of the back of my eyes, from three years ago when I got my eyes scanned for the coma. I saw those pictures and they kind of looked like the moon, and scientific and you don’t really know what they are, and that then sends the viewer onto a train of thought». Freeman follows the scientific experimentation value behind photography. «They can mean anything, or they can mean absolutely nothing, so I wanted to do a project where it looks like it all means something, or there is something, some deeper understanding. The focus was to have some scientific aesthetic of it». 

Photographs «are supposed to be light-hearted; there is a comical element in the way that the model’s hair is, or that she is holding an egg, or the guys that’s holding all these boxes». The collection includes a photograph of a model in a taped square box. «In a scientific experiment, you will have a constant, here it was a square. We did actually a film with it as well, which we are working on at the moment. We got the models moving around the square and just got them to do the same movement and the comparison side by side is interesting». «There is this repetition and more exploring an idea, whether that’s movement or emotion, but the models will do the same thing over and over again, and then just record it. So that’s why a lot of the images have this repetition». Such is the case with the portraits of the smiling man. «I took one shot of the portrait, and we didn’t like the jacket, so we reshot it without the jacket, and just purely by chance got that exact same pose, so it wasn’t even intentional. It was a happy accident». ‘Happy accidents’ is often the case in photography, however shooting in film is often termed as a ‘lucky accident’.

Brendan Freeman

is a Photographer, Art Director & Publisher residing in London

Matteo Mammoli