Iain McKell and the subcultures

McKell grow up in a hotel in Weymouth and managed to get a job as photographer taking pictures of tourists. Capturing everything from photographers with monkeys to girls with “kiss me quick” hats on, McKell managed to discovered the essential British seaside holiday ten years before Martin Parr’s “New Brighton”. The book “home town dream” is full of the kitsch eccentricity complete with nostalgic 70’s fashion and facial hair.

There is also an element of voyeurism in his work, whether it young girls changing on the beach or photographing people in cars looking out with binoculars, that would make even Weegee proud.
He site one of his influences as the American photographer Diana Arbus, for instance this photo of a child in a Batman mask and swimming trunks has a unmistakable similarity. The mask hides his identity and makes his head look disproportionally large whilst his barely clothed body gives him an innocent fragile look.
There is also a large amount of violence in some of those photos, as he interacts on the various punk and skin head groups that were at large at the time. Stating that whilst he was behind the camera he felt invisible.
This series ultimately show him growing up into a young man mixed up in the various sub cultures and his love of music, women and horrible lens flare.

His latest series is of what McKell calls “the new gypsies”, people how are not descended from Roma but chose to live that lifestyle. They where an offshoot of the new age travellers how abandoned their buses and took up horse drawn carriages.
He spent just under a decade photographing them, originally planning to stay a mere three months on the project. This gave him the time period to get to understand this unknown and undiscovered tribe.
Capturing a group of people who live the hippy lifestyle instead of just preaching about it, they are at once connected to nature and disconnected from conventional society. He also states firmly that it is not a romantic life style but a practical one.
He concentrates on photographing people as it is evidently them who define the life, humanising this align subject instead of focusing on the dramatic differences in their modes of being. By doing this he has managed to break down the barriers to this strange group, the most notable example is when he took the super model Kate Moss to meet them, doing a fashion shoot in the midst of the camp. Thus he does what he does best, bringing this extraordinary subculture into the ordinary mundane world.