James Kendall

  • Projects
    • Wasted On The Young (2022-2024)
    • Much Like Unrequited Love (2024)
    • Unmade Beds (2021-2022)
    • Made Beds (2021-2022)
    • First Dance (2021)
    • Best Before (2011)
  • Commercial
    • Portraits
    • Live Music
    • Bands
    • Events
    • Video
  • Writing
  • About
    • Wasted On The Young (2022-2024)
    • Much Like Unrequited Love (2024)
    • Unmade Beds (2021-2022)
    • Made Beds (2021-2022)
    • First Dance (2021)
    • Best Before (2011)
    • Portraits
    • Live Music
    • Bands
    • Events
    • Video
  • Writing
  • About
Brighton
UK

Found Polaroids / August 20, 2021 by James Kendall

Many years ago I bought these photos in a Prague junk shop. I wish I knew who this guy with his favourite musicians was.

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September 11, 2021

My 🍑 Is Reportage / July 15, 2021 by James Kendall

Googling myself I found this photo of my best side on a French language website. Just this photo, and a caption.

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Me September 11, 2021

New Journalism: Skint Records / June 21, 2021 by James Kendall

I spoke to Damian Harris, boss of Skint Records, about the early years of his and Fatboy Slim’s adventures. Published in the new Classic Pop special devoted to 90s Dance Music.

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September 12, 2021

Social Haul Press Shots / March 11, 2021 by James Kendall

FatCat Records asked me to take some press shots for Traams offshoot Social Haul. To make it Covid safe we went into the country, tapping in to the walking vibe that everyone has been on.

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September 11, 2021

Sex Shops / February 20, 2021 by James Kendall

I started a Instagram channel of shops and signs from Sussex businesses that… well, you don’t need me to explain it.

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September 11, 2021

Christmas Good Vibes / December 24, 2020 by James Kendall

Happy Xmas everyone, with this handheld long exposure Christmas miracle from Brighton.

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September 11, 2021

Book: 'Dinosaur Dust' Zoe Childerley / December 15, 2020 by James Kendall

Zoe’s new book is a great exploration of a community of people that have found themselves living in the desert for various reasons. The portraits are especially good.

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October 04, 2021

Best Of 1999 / August 20, 2020 by James Kendall

1999 was a pretty good year for music. I went deep and dug into every corner to make a compilation of the 40 best songs of the last year of the millennium. Playlist inside.

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September 11, 2021

Little Cat Archive / July 15, 2020 by James Kendall

My greatest model, my muse, my camera test subject. She’s literally called Little Cat, although she’s probably Medium Cat these days. Post purely for all those that ask for pics of her.

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October 04, 2021

Covid Doorstopping / May 20, 2020 by James Kendall

Got to see my friend Pat for the first time in forever. Like a vampire I was stuck outside the threshold.

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Photo Diary August 20, 2021

New Camera / May 2, 2020 by James Kendall

I got an infrared camera. I think it's got some promise. I'll let you know if I take any interesting pics with it, but in the meantime, here's a daisy.

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January 13, 2022

Finally Own Some Elaine Constantine Work / April 27, 2020 by James Kendall

I just gave £100 to the Trussell Trust because the food bank service they provide is amazing, and absolutely nothing to do with always wanting to own an Elaine Constantine photo.

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August 20, 2021

Matt Barker for Lighthouse / February 5, 2020 by James Kendall

Really nice to find Matt Barker on the bill for the Lighthouse event they asked me to shoot for them.

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September 11, 2021

Ali Tollervey On The Beach / October 22, 2019 by James Kendall

Had the unexpected pleasure of watching tonight's sunset on the beach with the ever charming Ali Tollervey.

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August 20, 2021

Cycle To Work Cliche Explosion / October 1, 2019 by James Kendall

One of the best things about my trip to work is cycling along the seafront. Sometimes it’s not cloudy and rainy, it’s rainy and sunny.

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Photo Diary August 20, 2021

Scott Booth / September 22, 2019 by James Kendall

Scott makes the most incredible rhythmic and melodic noises from just his guitar. Really, if you get the chance, go and see him.

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Photo Diary September 11, 2021

King's Cross / September 22, 2019 by James Kendall

I had a little while to kill in King’s Cross and, well, there’s not much moral to do in King’s Cross so I took some photos.

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September 11, 2021

New Camera / September 15, 2019 by James Kendall

Got a new camera - a Fuji XT3 - and took it out into the garden to see how it felt.

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Photo Diary August 20, 2021
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Featured

Featured
My Dissertation
My Dissertation

Here's my dissertation from my MA in Photography. An argument about beauty: when it pacifies, when it dignifies, and why the same country can produce both Boris Mikhailov's brutal Case History and Yelena Yemchuk's sunlit Odesa. Written in 2022, with the war already changing how the work reads.

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Foals Interview
Foals Interview

This is Foals first ever cover story. Even then Yannis was an intense guy. I knew I had to go in with good questions, even though they were just one single in at the time. It was obvious from the get go that they were special.

““We played a squat in Elephant & Castle – there’s a photo of it on our myspace – and this entire wall got hit through with a fire extinguisher,” Yannis remembers with a smile. “There was a whole wall and a doorway into the basement where we were playing when we started. By the time we finished our set there was just a beam and rumble, and ketamine and squat juice. That was pretty exciting.”

Foals might like to play with the walls literally removed between them and the audience but Yannis also likes these house parties – and inviting the fans on stage for proper gigs – as they remove the metaphorical barriers around the band, the way that the hardcore punks would. At the Camden Crawl 60 kids shared the stage with the group.

With all those complex layers of melody it’s a surprise that they could tolerate a nudge against their musicianship. Is that extreme musicality something they work at? Yannis says not – they never make things more complicated for the sake of it. But it’s a dangerous game to play, being talented at your instrument – just look what happened to prog rock.

“Dangerous? No,” he says sternly, “because we have a modicum of taste. There are some amazing prog records and there are some terrible fucking punk records. Predominately we like communicating with people.””

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Bat For Lashes Interview
Bat For Lashes Interview

Within about five minutes of Bat For Lashes first single arriving on my desk I was on the phone to get her on the cover, her first. This was the final of three times I interviewed her - a Q&A but she was on good form.

“You’ve collaborated in your songwriting for the first time on ‘Laura’. Was that a difficult decision to make?
It was quite hard. I think I’ve always been quite snobbish about it in the past but I wanted to see what it was like to work with someone that would push me a little bit in a direction, and teach me something that I didn’t know already. I feel that it was really nice to be collaborating with Justin [Parker, who has also worked with Lana Del Rey]. I had a brief. I wanted to write a piano song that was harkening back to those old 70s ballads, with a middle eight and traditional structure. But I always like to put my own angle on it, so the dark subject matter or whatever came through. And together we navigated it and came up with something that still sounded very much like me. I think it turned out really well. I’m happy with that song.”

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James Lavelle Interview
James Lavelle Interview

I had a great night out with Mo Wax’s James Lavelle in Romania. I know he’s got a bit of a, er, reputation, but we got on like a house on fire. This report is from DJmag.

“But the experience hasn’t been all plain sailing. Waiting for James to turn up in the less than glamorous Bucharest airport earlier in the day, he’s easy to spot, decked head to foot in Bathing Ape clothing and Futura scribbles. He’s also weighted down with a brace of the coolest record bags available. He smiles his way through a Fabric-fueled hangover, but it isn’t long before the lack of sleep helps shift his mood. There’s been a mix up, and Lavelle isn’t in the least bit happy. His favourite mixer isn’t at the club as planned, and instead he’ll have to make do with his most hated bit of equipment. For someone who claims to be ‘not much of a DJ, no Sasha’ it seems a bit much as angry phone calls are made.

Somewhere around the UNKLE album Lavelle started to get a regular kicking from the press. His ‘overblown’ longplayer ‘Psyence Fiction’ – featuring mates like Massive Attack’s 3D, Badly Drawn Boy and Thom Yorke – dared to go beyond the underground hip hop clubs where he was worshiped. The media had spent the last few years asking Lavelle what they should tell their readers was cool (“Star Wars figures? Great. Futura graffiti? OK!”), but now they’d changed their minds. The Mo Wax boss was getting too big for his boots, they said, he was arrogant and needed taking down a peg or two.”

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Best Daft Punk Lost Classics
Best Daft Punk Lost Classics

Vice liked this article so much they invited Brighton Source to be part of the Vice Blog Network. I turned them down because one day Brighton Source will be bigger than Vice and Vice will be part of the Source Blog Network.

“A simple piece of 90s filter disco, ‘Club Soda’ is rather more refreshing than the gritty, jacking stuff usually found on Bangalter’s ‘Tracks On Da Rocks’ 12”s. A sliver of an old disco guitar riff is pitched right down to a very ‘now’ 120bpm for a sexy minimal groove. Warm and euphoric, it should find favour with anyone that liked ‘Get Lucky’. Like most of the stuff on Bangalter’s peerless Roulé imprint, this is firmly made for club play but is sexy and melodic enough to groove around your bedroom to.”

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