PHOTOGRAPHER BROCK ELBANK

Beards are big. In all senses of the word, at the moment. And London-based photographer Brock Elbank has been capturing them with a keen sense of style since a stint of living in Sydney about 10 years ago. In 2005 he started work on an exhibition called “Facial”, which was the precursor to his current series, known as #Project60. “I came up with the idea for it for my [Australian] friend Jimmy Niggles’s charity Beard Season to promote it by attracting 60 of the world’s most diverse bearded characters,” Brock says. “The plan was to launch his charity in the Northern Hemisphere, with an exhibition, a book and a little surprise to be revealed at the launch.” It’s not surprising that Brock’s portraits have gained something of a cult following. He has been working as an award-winning photographer for two decades, specialising in advertising work and portraiture. Clients have included Coca Cola, Nike and Toyota. While he returned to live in the UK in 2013 he still has strong connections to Australia through his Australian wife, and his project with Jimmy Niggles. #Project60 will be launched in late October.

Which five words best describe you? Dry, loyal, cantankerous, passionate, determined.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? At 14 I knew I wanted to take pictures for my job. After art school and university, I moved to London to work in a studio, then assist. I was lucky enough to meet and work with the wonderful Isabella Blow The Sunday Times style fashion editor who commissioned my first five fashion editorials.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? You never stop learning and if you think you know it all, you'll never improve.

What’s your proudest career achievement? Every time I'm hired to do what I love to do, it sounds cheesy. But it's true.

What’s been your best decision? Never giving up.

Who inspires you? Real people, not models, who I strive to find and photograph. Like #Project60, a charity portrait series I'm currently working on, for my good friend Jimmy Niggles Beard Season charity. Also nature, especially flowers and my kids are always a source, with their imaginations running riot.

What are you passionate about? My family, friends, photography, food, wine, football, gardening, sounds like an ad for a dateline.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? There are many, purely for a portrait reason. Here goes: Jack Nicholson, James Dean, Marlon Brando, JFK, Elvis, Audrey Hepburn, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Morrissey, Jeff Bridges, Sir David Attenborough, Stephen Fry, and the list goes on and on. Plus, my two grandparents I never met.

What dream do you still want to fulfil? Just to keep working, doing what I love and photograph more interesting people. I'd also love to shoot posters for movies at some point too.

What are you reading? This sounds awful, but currently I'm not. With #project60 taking up every spare moment and two young daughters, I have little down time.

images courtesy of brock elbank

stylist & illustrator abigail edwards

Abigail Edwards is a UK stylist who has recently released a range of wallpapers. It's all a hands-on process. She draws the designs herself (she's also an illustrator), and has them printed in Lancashire at one of the few remaining UK wallpaper printers. The technique they use helps maintain the detail of the illustrations. Abigail also works on many interior design projects too.

Which five words best describe you? Creative, shy, driven, sensitive, insomniac.
How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? After studying fine art in London and Paris I did internships at art galleries in New York and then decided I wanted to style interiors for magazines, so I returned to London and assisted various stylists and magazines before I began styling my own shoots. I was deputy decorating editor at Country Homes & Interiors magazine for a while before going freelance and I have been styling for various magazines and commercial clients ever since. I now also style and design interior spaces and recently designed my first wallpaper collection.
What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? Nothing is worth losing sleep over, although I frequently fail to remember this!
What’s your proudest career achievement? My new wallpaper designs.
What’s been your best decision? To work for myself.
Who inspires you? Anyone who successfully balances running a creative business with a personal life.
What are you passionate about? Any project that I am currently working on, design, drawing, interiors, travel.
Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Oscar Wilde, Matthew Bourne, Tim Burton, The Brothers Grimm.
What dream do you still want to fulfil? I would really love to design a range of ceramics and also the interior of a café and one day I want to own a house in the country with a vegetable patch.
What are you reading? I have just finished reading Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason. I am very into Scandinavian crime at the moment and I am also reading the Henning Mankell Wallander books, only read the first three so far, so these will keep me going for a while.

images courtesy of abigail edwards

designer donna wilson

One of the great success stories out of the UK design world in recent years has been Donna Wilson. In 2010 she was crowned Designer of the Year at the British Design Awards, bridging the gap between craft and high-end design. Her wares are equally celebrated in boutique shops (including Kido Store in Sydney) as well as at design fairs such as Milan. She's also done collaborations with esteemed UK companies Ercol and SCP. Donna's success stems from her final show at the Royal College of Art in London, when all her knitted creatures sold out. That was in 2003. Today she's stocked in more than 25 countries across the globe.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? I started my career straight after my MA at the Royal college of Art. I had a lot of interest in the creatures I made for the final show, and shortly after that I showed at Designersblock, London. I had a few great shops order more creatures and my show sold out, which spurred me on to create more. I never thought in a million years that I would start a business making strange knitted creatures, but that was how it happened! I then developed the range into other interior products and accessories, as well as furniture for UK manufacturer SCP. We have over 150 stockists in over 25 countries, and are still growing. We have some great stockists in Australia - like Space Furniture and Safari Living.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? That I can’t do everything myself and I CAN say no to things! (In the beginning I always tried to do everything, but I think I’m a lot calmer now!) I now have a fantastic team, who are all very talented and great fun to work with.

What’s been your best decision? To stick to my principles and keep true to what I do, which is make things that I love, within the UK, and celebrate the handmade.

What are you passionate about? I am really passionate about the handmade and I love and cherish the imperfections that come out of it. I also try to keep all the production done in the UK, this way we have a better handle on the manufacturing process and the quality.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? I would love to have some more time with my grandma, who taught and inspired me so much when she was alive.

What dream do you still want to fulfil? I would like to create a world of pattern and colour and make it a happier place!

What are you reading? I don’t read enough I’m afraid; I think I am more of a visual person. I spend a lot of the time on blogs and flicking through magazines, and I find films very inspiring. I loved The science of sleep when that came out, which was directed by Michele Gondry. The cardboard scenes were very inspirational.

images courtesy of donna wilson

a space of my own by caroline clifton-mogg

Who doesn't want a space of their own? (Even if you don't have much to spare.) That's the premise behind the latest book by UK journalist and author Caroline Clifton-Mogg. She provides ideas and inspiration, as well as plenty of case studies, on how to create a space where you can be creative. The title is distributed in Australia through Hardie Grant.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken
 since? I worked in magazines both at Conde Nast and Hearst for many years, always on the design side, and after some time decided that it would be much more fun, and more stimulating to go freelance and try and write books about the subjects that interested me.


What's the best lesson you've learnt along the way? Professionally? Always deliver on time – if not before! And that self-deprecation is better than hubris. Personally – a variation of the above – if you say you’re going to do something for someone, do it. If you don’t think you can or will, don’t say it.


What's your proudest career achievement? Actually getting a book or two published and occasionally seeing them on a table in a book shop.

What's been your best decision? To strike out on my own.

Who inspires you? Anyone who has managed to rise above the idea that they can’t do it, and then goes out and actually does do it.

What are you passionate about? The usual – being with people I like, preferably eating and drinking with them. Reading books, cooking, and going to the cinema and opera.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Charles Dickens, although I think he would probably be too busy talking about himself to take much notice of me!


What are you reading?
 Life and fate by Vasily Grossman.

...

How did you arrive at the concept for the book? I had just re-arranged my own apartment to create a small room in which I could write and keep all my reference and work-related books around me. It was a revelation! It would not be an exaggeration to say that my whole work life changed the minute I plugged in my laptop onto the work counter and put the last book in its place in the new shelves.

What was involved with the creation process? Working with Ryland Peters and Small is a pretty seamless process. We had creative meetings to discuss what a reader might want from such a book; picture meetings to try and find images that would be useful and helpful, on every level; and editorial meetings to discuss what help one could actually give, beyond the bland and obvious, in terms of inspiring, practical and above all, personal advice.

How long did it take to come together - from concept to first copy? About six months.

How did you envisage the look of the book? I knew that it should look clean and contemporary with ideas on many different levels.

What was unexpected about the whole process? Generally, the enthusiasm that greeted every stage of the book – both at the work place and amongst my friends - which made me realise that having a space of your own is actually a deep-felt need in many people – particularly women who work from home.

images courtesy of caroline clifton-mogg and via hardie grant

designer thomas housden

While Thomas Housden practises as an architect in the UK, he also has a passion for getting back to basics with design. He felt that his profession was getting too far removed from the manufacturing process. The result is Hand & Eye Studio, which he launched last year. So far Tom has formed a small studio and workshop, and works with a range of manufacturers in the UK to create products that celebrate materials such as terracotta, earthenware clay and tulip timber.

Which five words best describe you? It depends on who you ask. Tall, skinny dreamer with a pragmatic side perhaps?

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? I studied architecture and have worked for a range of companies. I realised whilst working that the one thing I really missed was getting involved with the manufacture of things. Architecture is remarkably remote from the actual process of making so I decided to start to make smaller things. Hand & Eye studio is the result.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? It's always important to understand other peoples' point of view. The amount of times I have seen people demanding unreasonable requests always amazes me.

What’s your proudest career achievement? The very first Hand & Eye Studio sale was a great thing. It's very simple but there is something gratifying in the fact that other people find enjoyment in your work and are willing to part with hard-earned money.

What’s been your best decision? I'm not really sure as it is probably too early to say.

Who inspires you? Samuel Mockbee. He was an architect and a teacher of architecture who started the influential Rural Studio program. I read a number of his writings and was always moved by his thoughts.

What are you passionate about? Manufacturing. Making is so enjoyable as it allows the intellect and all bodily senses to work together at once.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Gertrude Bell

What dream do you still want to fulfil? Hand & Eye Studio would like to eventually own a large workshop space where ideas can be explored through manufacturing.

What are you reading? The hare with the amber eyes by Edmund de Waal

images courtesy of hand & eye studio

photographer tim hall

Tim Hall started his photography career shooting the likes of Miles Davis and Prince. After making a name for himself as a jazz and rock photographer in the UK, he turned his lens to the people of South East Asia while basing himself there in the 1990s. Tim then became interested in landscape photography after taking photographs of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. In 2008 he was commissioned to shoot the Austrian alps and surrounding valleys and villages for the Aurelio Hotel. He was also commissioned by Italian film producer Alberto Grimaldi to photograph the Dolomites and the Thames. Tim is represented by Lensky Gallery in the UK, Staley Wise in New York, Envie D'Art in Paris and Brussels, Tasveer in India, AJC Fine Art in Hong Kong and Raab Galerie in Berlin. This week he is exhibiting as part of the Spring Medley at Flaere Gallery in London.

Which five words best describe you? Honest, hardworking, loving, happy, calm.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? I got a job as a darkroom printer in a music picture library in London - this led to me shooting live concerts and musicians for magazines and newspapers. After that I got a call from a friend to help make a book on Cambodia, which led to a book on Vietnam and Burma and Laos. I then moved to Hong Kong for seven years and started shooting fine art portraits of the people of Asia.

What's the best lesson you've learnt along the way? Keep an open mind.

What's your proudest career achievement? To have 200 photographs of the mountains hanging on the walls of a hotel in Austria.

What's been your best decision? x3: To live in Asia, marry my wife and to have children.

Who inspires you? Sebastiao Salgado

What are you passionate about? Music, cooking, travel.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Dalai Lama

What dream do you still want to fulfill? To travel and document the Silk Route.

What are you reading? Steve Jobs biography.

images courtesy of tim hall

artist sue williams a'court

UK artist Sue Williams A'Court first made a name for herself as an illustrator. Her children's book Time for telling won the prestigious Smarties Award in 1991. (She has published seven of them.) Her art is in various collections in the UK - including at the V&A Museum - USA, Italy and France. Sue has also exhibited many times in London, where she lives with her family, and Paris.

Which five words best describe you? Positive, committed, philosophical, hands-on, open.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? I had early success as a commercial illustrator with agents in London, New York, Paris and Japan. After having my little boy, work naturally developed into illustrating for children's books and painting from a studio in my London home. Now my focus is on painting and exhibiting full-time.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? I've learnt to follow my interests without judgement and accept that I may not know where it will lead. When I’m creating paintings it’s more about desire and will than fulfilling an objective. When I "disappear" into the creative process amazing things happen almost by themselves.

What’s your proudest career achievement? Working hard to get to the position I am in now: being able to paint full time from a fabulous studio. Most recently I've been selected for an online gallery called New Blood.

What’s been your best decision? Not moving house and focusing energy on painting instead.

Who inspires you? My studio is full of books by artists and philosophers - I’m inspired by certain talks on TED and by ideas discussed by present-day scientists and philosophers at School of Life.

What are you passionate about? My family; my husband Andy and my gorgeous 10-year-old son Finlay.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Ramana Maharshi

What dream do you still want to fulfil? To live longer than my mother; she died when she was 64.

What are you reading? Exile and the kingdom stories by Albert Camus

images courtesy of sue williams a'court

stylist susie clegg

UK stylist Susie Clegg jokes that her job is about making things look pretty and shopping. But her work has its basis in design. Her interest in the field was sparked after studying furniture and interior design. However, styling is her passion, and it has led to work with a range of clients, including Dulux, Habitat, MTV and Liberty, as well as publications such as Elle Decoration UK and Living Etc.

Which five words best describe you? Small person with big ideas.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? I credit an old friend to getting me into styling who came home one day from work and said, "I met a girl today, her job was a stylist. She makes things look pretty and shops a lot. I think you would be good at that!" Since that introduction into styling, I have had a great time finding my way through the world of style. After lots of hard work, very long hours and a lot of shopping I’m still here and looking forward to what is going to happen next.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? Don’t panic!

What’s your proudest career achievement? One of them would be styling an event at Buckingham Palace recently. It was amazing to be there; everyone was lovely, the event was a success so it was a great day topped off with royal approval.

What’s been your best decision? To get a credit card that gives me air miles, I should have done it years ago.

Who inspires you? People that have those annoyingly simple and clever ideas that you think why has no one ever thought of that before, I’m still thinking.

What are you passionate about? My work. It is a lifestyle choice the job I do so it becomes part of your every day to not be passionate about it would mean you would have no motivation.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Terry Wogan, (I am not sure if you have heard of him over in Australia), he used to have a chat show over here in the eighties and I would imagine being a guest to talk about my new book release. I can still dream.

What dream do you still want to fulfil? I would like to swim with dolphins.

What are you reading? The Farrow and Ball paint chart.

images courtesy of susie clegg

designer neisha crosland

One of the most successful UK textile and wallpaper designers of recent times is Neisha Crosland. She studied graphic design at Camberwell School of Art and completed postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Art, where he degree show led to an invitation from Osborne & Little to create a collection for them. In 1994 she launched her own label and has produced many ranges of fabric and wallpaper but also rugs and ceramics. Neisha's work has also been collected by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Which five words best describe you? I really do not know.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? I specialised in printed textiles at The Royal College of Art, and Osborne and Little commissioned a collection from my degree show. I then freelanced and sold designs painted up on paper to fashion houses and fabric houses. I became increasingly frustrated with not getting the designs to look like I wanted them to, by not finishing the process on to cloth, so I started my own line of scarves. I am now doing a variety of products with pattern on everything from wallpapers and fabrics to stationery and rugs.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? Try to go one step at a time but keep stepping!

What’s your proudest career achievement? The goal posts keep moving, but I suppose the first time I saw one of my scarves worn by a woman in Sainsbury’s supermarket. It was in 1996 and my first collection - I remember following her around the dairy aisle like a groupie.

What’s been your best decision? To have children, to move my studio next to my home, and to book holidays well in advance so you have plenty of time to enjoy looking forward to them.

Who inspires you? Mothers who cook, garden and look after their children in a completely selfless way. When I was younger it was artists like Popova, and Matisse now.

What are you passionate about? After my family, work, after that food, wine, paintings, the sea and the mountains.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Matisse.

What dream do you still want to fulfil? Cook really well with great aplomb rather than flap and stress.

What are you reading? The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig.

images courtesy of neisha crosland

architect, interior designer & shopkeeper ben pentreath

Each year Ben Pentreath showcases a 'Cabinet of curiosities' in his shop in London's Bloomsbury. It's one of many projects he has on the go. Ben is also an architect and interior designer. Ben studied art history and architecture at the University of Edinburgh, and worked as an architect in both London and New York before returning to the UK capital to start up his own practice, Working Design Group. In 2008 he opened his shop in Bloomsbury. And today you can buy some of his curiosities online. Or check out a photographic journal of his home and garden in Dorset.

Which five words best describe you? I am feeling completely knackered.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? When I left Edinburgh University with a degree in History of Art 20 years ago I was lucky enough to get an apprenticeship working for an architect, Charles Morris. I spent five years with Charles then moved to New York where I worked for a small firm in Greenwich Village. I think I worked out who I was in NYC and along the way had a fantastic time doing houses up for people like Sarah Jessica Parker and Liv Tyler. In 2003 I returned to London and worked for the Prince of Wales’s Foundation, which started my interest in large-scale development. A year later I opened my own architectural practice and in 2008 Bridie and I opened the shop. To start with the business was very small but I now employ 10 people, and I think that’s enough. We’re working on some interesting projects from Central London to Cornwall to the north of Scotland.

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? Work hard, know your friends, and try to treat everyone with respect. I’m not always good at the last.

What’s your proudest career achievement? The next project.

What’s been your best decision? Moving to New York (and coming back again).

Who inspires you? Terence Conran, John Nash.

What are you passionate about? Improvement.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? David Hicks.

What dream do you still want to fulfil? I prefer reality to dreams.

What are you reading? Reader's Digest Gardening month by month.

images courtesy of ben pentreath; portrait via timeout; and shop images via homelove