Julian Anderson helped me achieve
the impossible. As art director for the
re-launch of Management Today I was
challenged to make business look
contemporary, relevant, informative
and even fun. I knew photography was
the key. Anderson's first portrait for
the magazine captured the new mood
I was trying to achieve exactly. It was to
be the first of a number of commissions
- and the result each time was a
perfectly pitched response to a brief
we had discussed carefully together.
When I went on to work with the
National Portrait Gallery I was not
surprised to find so many of his
portraits in the Collection of
Photographs.
Anne Braybon
Former art director Management
Today magazine / Consultant
for photographic portraiture, National Portrait Gallery
Julian works in the classic way: not
simply imposing a style but taking
photographs through real observation
and reportage.
Simon Esterson
Esterson Associates
|
What I always look for in photographers, over and above their 'eye', is someone who is not only easy to work with, but also adds value, looking for solutions that I might not have seen. Julian has worked with me in this way on several projects over the last ten years, most recently for clients as diverse as Hewlett Packard and the department store Liberty.
John Rushworth
Pentagram
I first met Julian when we commissioned him to record the construction of the Millennium Bridge, where I was the project director for the client. Julian turned this into an extraordinary testimony to the people who designed, built and simply watched the bridge going up. For us it was a perfect match to the social and regenerative objectives of the project.
Following this, I asked Julian to photograph the work at Christchurch, Spitalfields, the iconic church designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The project restored the church to its original 1725 design, stripping away the Victorian rebuilding. I was very keen to capture the techniques and trades-people who worked on the project as a sort of silent witness to the passage of three centuries of craft and architecture. |
Julian executed both of these projects superbly, exceeding the confines of the brief we set him. His relaxed, rather laid-back style masks a pin-sharp, probing approach to his subjects. He got on especially well with the people on site, managing to capture the care and attentiveness of those who work on these very special projects – even the guys who dig the drains and shift rubble. He also has a great grasp of how three or four years of images will work together as a visual essay at the end of a project.
His work is full of human scale. In contrast to many photographers who work in this field, Julian seems fascinated by those who are involved in making new architecture. Most of his photographs have people doing things to buildings – it is the process that seems to inspire him as well as the object, and the recording of projects over time where he excels. He has the stamina to turn up at seemingly tranquil moments on site and find a defining image of critical importance to the sequence of construction.
Malcolm Reading, Chairman
Malcolm Reading consultants |