Ben Minkoff is an off-shoot of Rebecca Minkoff’s line, catering specifically to men’s bags and accessories.

To follow my work, follow me on @felixkunze or via facebook

The Festival Annual ‘11 book features a front cover by yours truly. It was taken during a particularly rowdy day at Reading Music Festival in August.

I shot the Glastonbury Festival and Reading Music Festival for Festival Annual this year, both of which are now a chapter in this amazing documentation of festival culture. This is the kind of book that is going to be cherished more and more with each passing generation. Mark my words!

I’ve included some of my favorite images from Reading Music Festival. For the rest, you’ll have to head over to the Festival Annual Facebook page and buy the book. If you ‘like’ the page, you’ll get a discount coupon for the book. It’s available for sale at the end of October 2011.

The demographic of Reading Music Festival is mostly middle class teenagers, who use the weekend to have a lot of (sometimes too much) fun. The group below are the guys who also ended up on the front cover on the book. I ran from one end of the site to the other to capture the malarky.

Tommy, Ashley, Max and the rest of the boys started bugging me pretty much the minute I left the festival and were hoping for the cover. They were duly rewarded. They also have a large spread in the book. The experience of shooting for Festival Annual is fairly interactive. I hand out cards all weekend, and most of the people I photograph end up interacting on the Festival Annual Facebook site. In a way, that makes it an even more rewarding experience.

Go ahead and ‘like’ the Festival Annual facebook page for more. Or follow my photo updates on my facebook page.

I attended my 5th Thorsten Overgaard seminar in London over the weekend of 4 Sept 2011. I’ve now attended 2 in London, one in Berlin, one in New York and one in Sweden.

Here’s some of my images from it.

There’s several reasons why I, as a working photographer, keep coming back.

One of the things is that Thorsten has been a mentor of mine for many years and he has so much photography wisdom to give.

He also manages to attract a cool group of people at any seminar. Professional people who want to learn about photography, from all over the world, and usually with their Leica in tow. I’m always shooting with my Nikon but it’s OK.

It’s a weekend of theory, chats, dinner, and most importantly shooting on the street. I don’t shoot on the street enough, and to be pushed into it always creates interesting results.

Thorsten does these all around the world, you can see more info here. I always leave the seminar with renewed inspiration and creative drive.

deadmau5 headlining on day 1. Lots of mice in the crowd.
Roskilde is very very organized. To get into the front you have to queue up for hours. It’s a shambolic form of organization, and somehow it really works.

Arctic Monkeys on the Orange stage (main stage). The stage has quite a history, having been designed originally for the Rolling Stones’ summer tour of 1976.

The crowds always have lots of fun, even if you are all the way at the back. 

The very energetic, theatrical Lykke Li, this year’s Florence + the Machine. 

Take care of each other

And take care of each other they do. This is in front of a pond/trash pit, but somehow they are still having a relaxing time.

This girl was shaving this boy’s head, halfway through the shaver ran out of battery. But it doesn’t matter, no-one will look at him twice at Roskilde.

A dedicated British camper. 

It wouldn’t be a major European rock festival without all the rain. Copenhagen got some of the heaviest rainfall in recorded history and the place I was staying (along with most of my belongings) were flooded in 6 inches of water. Luckily Roskilde didn’t get as much rain, it would have probably caused the cancellation of the Festival.

Protection from the rain.

Singing/Dancing in the rain.

Kissing in the rain

Laughing in the rain.
The Danes, with their slightly less conservative approach to nakedness, enjoy a good bit of streaking in the rain.

The end. See you next year.

For the rest of my Roskilde 2011 images, have a look at the collection on the Getty Images site

You might also like: Roskilde 2010, Glastonbury 2011

About 10 days ago, I decided that there was a better place for my equipment than to gather dust beneath the stairs.

Things came together pretty quickly, and yesterday I shook hands on the space. I’ll be using it until at least mid October. Located 50 minutes outside of central London, the studio was set up in an old, large, rustic barn, all set on beautiful farmland. It’s a serene spot away from the city, it’s got horses, fields, forest and all sorts of other features. It’s perfect.

The shoots I’ve already used the studio for are still in post production, so instead I called upon my friends/sometime assistants Mia & Raph to pose for me. These are some behind the scenes images (with the end result) to show it off.

I’m excited to have a space that I can use for nothing but creating photos. I will be shooting creative work, publicity stills, the odd headshot and will have some celebrities down for some sittings.

The whole point, of course, is to create beautiful portraiture.

The thing that really makes it special is that I have natural light when I want it. And, I can leave the studio itself in the shot. It doesn’t detract from the image.

I want to explore what can be done in terms of portraiture. I want to get a variety of personalities and really push myself and my subjects to create timeless images.

You can book your shoot now.

Just send me an email via the contact menu or comment below, I’ll get in touch.

I was hired on a dream assignment – to shoot Glastonbury Festival. But not to shoot music or stage performances, but atmosphere around the festival. The dream lasted until around the third hour of fighting, yes FIGHTING with the mud. I was shooting for the great guys over at Festival Annual.

Glastonbury is conceivably the largest rock music festival on earth. 175,000 people went this year. It’s the largest single purpose site I’ve ever seen for anything. Considering that many cities in UK are smaller than 175,000 people, it’s quite something. Glastonbury is a messy, wonderful temporary city. Everyone is there to have a good time. And the atmosphere is amazing.

But Glastonbury really is so much more than a music festival. It is a celebration of culture savoured like no other.

Like this little disco tent with funky light, you find these little places all over the site.

And people just hanging out on a hill overlooking the site at sunset

The site is entirely eclectic, from chill-out areas.

Charming camp sites…

Kid’s play areas

Busking…

…and even a dry cinema for the small and big kids.

Of course one of the big challenges is the mud. The ground at Glastonbury is made of clay, which turns into a very sticky mud that literally pulls the shoes off people’s feet.

Resulting in lovely scenes like the ‘Wellie Graveyard), the place protective footwear goes to die.

Just a bit of toilet atmosphere…

Glastonbury also has some very established night life. Because of the distance from any large urban population, curfews aren’t quite the same.

The party lasts all night. 

Even in some of the clubs, like ‘Fish and Tits’ in the Shangri-La area. Pole dancers and all sorts. 

Or Downlow NYC, a retro gay club which is part of the ‘party area’, Block 9. 

But Glastonbury wouldn’t be Glasto without all the performance art. The ‘Spider’ show at the Arcadia field attracts a lot of attention.

The Pyramid stage during U2’s set.

The end!

To see more, head over to the Festival Annual Facebook page. My images will be part of their annual book documenting festival culture. It will be out in the Autumn.

You can follow my work on twitter or stay in touch via facebook.

On Thursday, after interning at Annies, I hopped on the Amtrak to Philadelphia to donate my time to provide a bit of atmosphere coverage of the 2nd Annual Help for Orphans benefit.

The purpose of the event was to raise funds for Help for Orphans international.

A couple of celebrity attendees – Rudy Reyes off HBO’s Generation Kill.

Celebrity DJ Chris Masterson

The event included a mini fashion presentation by ‘S V E T by Aleksandra’.

Some atmosphere of the girls getting ready backstage.

The girls wait to take their positions.

Anastasia doing a little bit of improvised performing. She’s got a great personality.

And to end of, me with the Help for Orphans girls – Isabella on the left and Sarah on the right. Isabella went to Haiti with me on my second trip there. Sarah is the founder of Help for Orphans. Both are dear friends. You can help their projects by following the link below and making a donation to Help for Orphans.

Links:

Help for Orphans

Svet by Aleksandra

My trip to Haiti #1 and #2

Projects page

Twitter

Facebook

I’m happy to announce that Contour Style is now representing some of my work, mostly in the Beauty, Fashion & lifestyle category.

This is a wonderful expansion of the representation I already have at Contour Photo, who take my celebrity portraiture and put it into syndication. Syndication is essentially distribution to newspapers, magazines and other publications.

You can browse the Contour Style collection here.

Shot on a rooftop and other locations around Manhattan, the images are now a title feature in M Magazine, a nifty online magazine chronicling all things London theatre. The images are now also represented by my celebrity portraiture licensing and syndication agent Contour.

See the feature below and read the rest of the magazine here.

2010 was somewhat of a crazy year. I worked my fingers to the bone to make Haiti projects happen. It was some of the most exhausting, yet most rewarding work of my life and has defined the year.

While the early part of year was spent travelling a lot, since Sept I’ve divided my time between New York where I am interning with photographer Annie Leibovitz and breaks in Florida for private commissions or to celebrate various holidays. I’ll be in New York until March at which point I return to the UK, then 2011 will really take shape.

I took a minute to go through all of my photo projects, flight receipts and projects and made a list of all the trips and shoots I did this year. Below is an outline of my trips, with the reasons for those trips given below. Not all shots are included, but noteworthy occasions and projects are included. Where published, each item includes a link to the final work. A lot more is in existence and will come out of the next few months.

This list is mostly for myself, something I want to publish so I have a record of it in years to come but you might find it interesting. It starts on 1 Dec 2009 because I feel it was the start of the travel craze that didn’t take a break until the summer of 2010:
All links (in blue) open in a new window

1 – 7 Dec 09 – Monterrey, Mexico &
7-18 Dec 09 – Outlying, Deserted Islands, Belize

• Fashion photographs for model Barbara Schneider in Mexico and on a yacht in the Caribbean.

24-31 Dec 09 – London, England

• Christmas and New Year’s break

5-7 Jan - London, England

• Some of the heaviest snowfalls in Southern England in decades. Links: 1st day, 2nd day, 3rd day

9 Jan – London, England

• UK stencil artist Jonathan Kluss publicity shoot

1 Feb – 6 Feb 2010 – Port-au-Prince, Haiti

• First trip to the earthquake zone to document relief efforts – this trip was self-funded and involved flying via New York to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and then taking a 7 hour bus ride into Port-Au-Prince, a surreal experience. See all of my Haiti related posts here.

7-12 Feb 2010 – New York, USA

• Met Lara Jade for the first time. She introduced me to Joey L and also got me a contact at Annie Leibovitz Studios that eventually lead to an interview for an internship there – which I’m now doing.

14-21 Feb 2010 – Berlin, Germany

• Thorsten Overgaard’s fantastic photo seminar. My images from that time are here.

3 March – Philadelphia, USA

• Covered a fashion show and fundraising event for Haiti, organised by Isabella Garcia for Help for Orphans International, a charity that helps improve the life of orphans worldwide

4-12 March - Port-au-Prince, Haiti

• Haiti trip #2 – this time squarely for the Future of Haiti orphanage and Help for Orphans International. See all of my Haiti related posts here.

14-15 March – Los Angeles, USA

• - Kerri Kasem and Nikki Sixx studio shoot during the recording of ‘Sixx Sense’ for Getty Images – the image of Nikki Sixx is now used widely online.
• - Jack Osborne, Cassandra Hepburn, Kerri Kasem, Josh Hawkins, Haiti interview on the KPod Podcast.
• - Kerri Kasem and Ashley Marriot Malibu shoot – ‘Goddesses of Radio’, now published in H Magazine in the US.

20-21 March – Berlin, Germany

• Family Reunion and snapshooting around the city

26 March – London, England

• Inspire Photographic meetup, organised by Lara Jade and myself. – Press release for the event is here. It was featured across the web. We also have a twitter feed for it here

30 April – Tampa Bay, Florida, USA

• The Future of Haiti Fundraising event exhibition, I went to support my friend Brad Kugler in his efforts to help the orphanage with an exhibition in Florida

30 April – 22 June – Tampa Bay, Florida, USA

• Stay in Florida with a bunch of portraiture, a trip to Houston, Texas to photograph Isabella Garcia personal images, another trip to Miami to photograph the opening of Geebin Flores‘ store opening on South Beach, another trip to Orlando to photograph the launch of Rebuild Globally, an initiative to build up healthier environments in distressed communities. They promote recycling and eco-friendly development, gainful employment, agriculture and education. The trip was however mostly focused on portraiture.

26 June – Brighton, England

• An exhibition featuring 8 of my pieces from Haiti, exhibited to benefit the Future of Haiti Orphanage. Under the Banner of ‘Unite Brighton’ and attended by the Mayor of Brighton, the exhibition drew 7 local artists who all exhibited their works in the seafront Umi Hotel.

1-5 July – Roskilde, Denmark

• Coverage of stage acts and atmosphere at Europe’s third largest Music Festival. The full Getty coverage is here. The acts included Muse, Biffy Clyro, Prince, Florence + The Machine, Alice in Chains, Bad Lieutenant, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni BA, CV Jorgensen, Den Sorte Skole, Efterklang, Gorillaz, Jack Johnson, Julian Marley, Kasabian, Pavement, Patti Smith, Pendulum, The Prodigy, The Temper Trap, Vampire Weekend and many others.

9 July - London, England

• 2nd Publicity Shoot for Jonathan Kluss, stencil artist in the UK

15 July - London, England

• Shot the album cover for Derek Booth’s debut album – unpublished

16 July – London, England

• Photographed the Leuka Mini Masters for Premier Medical Group, attended by Hugh Grant, Phil Glenister, Nigel Harman, Mark Foster (Olympian and swimmer), Dougray Scott, Rob Brydon, Diana Stewart, Jamie Bamber and many other celebrities. Images are also on Getty Images.

18 July – London, England

• The first shoot on a project to photograph high-skill hip-hop dancing competitions with DJ D-LO – unpublished.

23 July – London, England

• Jessica Lauren Four project, shot album cover and publicity shots – unpublished

5 August - London, England

• Shot Barbara Lanik’s publicity images – they are the cover of an upcoming magazine which is unpublished yet, but her website has some of the images.

6 August – London, England

• Publicity production stills for Nadav Wiesel’s ‘Femme Fatalle’ a musical theatre extravaganza, produced by Frazer Brown. Most images unpublished as yet but there’s a preview below:

7-8 August – Lympne, Kent, England

• Photographed the Hevy Music Festival for the 2nd year in a row for Getty Images and Redferns. See the coverage here.

10-14 August – Copenhagen, Denmark

• Photographed Copenhagen Fashion Week, Spring/Summer 2011 for Getty Images. This was three days, all shows on the official line-up, shooting backstage, front row and runway at each show.

25 August – London, England

• Photographed the launch of Peroni’s latest campaign – unpublished.

27-29 August – Reading, England

• Photographed the Reading Music Festival for Festival Annual and Getty Images – It’s now out as a beautiful book called ‘Festival Annual 10′. See my post about it here.

1 Sept – London, England

• Photographed the Square Mile Magazine Masked Ball, hosted by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. Photographed at the invitation of Square Mile magazine and provided coverage to Getty Images.

2 Sept – London, England

• Photographed the new yearly publicity shot for Niki Lanik, international race driver and youth for human rights advocate. He passes the shot out as an autograph card, which is quite funny, I see it randomly when I travel around the globe.

5 Sept – London, England

• Covered the adidas Women’s 5K run – Hired by adidas with images supplied to Getty Images.

7 Sept – London, England

• Photographed the launch of Manolo Blahnik’s SS11 line at Liberties’ in London for Getty Images. Image ended up Vogue.com, ironically in a blog post about his travels and work in Manhattan.

11 Sept – London, England

• Alex Segal Publicity shot shoot – unpublished as yet. Unpublished as yet but a preview is below.

12 Sept – New York City, USA

• Start of internship at Annie Leibovitz Studios and 6 months stay in New York

16 Sept – New York City, USA

• Photographed Ivana Helsinki Fashion show at New York Fashion Week for Getty Images.

24-26 Sept – Tampa Bay, USA

• Various personal shoots.

9 Oct – Queens, New York

• Holt McCallaney Publicity Shoot. Holt is the lead of new FX TV show ‘Lights Out’ airing in 2011 – unpublished as yet but preview below.

15-17 Oct – Hamptons/Sag Harbor, Long Island, USA

• Publicity production stills and atmosphere shots for showcase of ‘Raindogs’, a Lanford Wilson and Rose Martula piece produced and directed by Andrew MacBean at the Bay Street Theatre.

20 Oct – New York City, USA

• Shot performance images of LA Rock Band Casxio for Getty Images

22 Oct – New York City, USA

• Publicity and product shots for a fashion brand revival – unpublished as yet, but more will come from this project in 2011.

24 Oct – New York City, USA

• Publicity shots for Matthew James Thomas, the alternate lead for the new Spiderman Musical on Broadway, with music by Bono and The Edge of U2 and directed by Julie Taymor, with the scoring by David Campbell. Check it out on my facebook page here or see preview below.

28-31 Oct – Tampa Bay, Florida, USA

• Photographed Halloween Party at a friend’s house in Florida and celebrated Halloween, such a wonderful piece of american culture.

31 Oct – 24 Nov – New York City, USA

• Returned to New York City to continue my internship at Annie Leibovitz Studios

7 Nov - New York City, USA

• Stage and publicity stills of Michael Hall’s alternative theatre project ‘Pieces of Paper’, an alternative treatment to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in 2011 – Unpublished as yet.

24 Nov – 6 Dec – Tampa Bay, Florida

• Came to the area to do a couple of personal shoots and to celebrate Thanksgiving.

6 Dec – New York City, USA

• Continue internship at Annie Leibovitz Studios

10 Dec – Philadelphia, USA

• Publicity shots, family portraits and portraits of private client – unpublished.

20 Dec – New York City, USA

• Stage images of US Alternative Rock Band Alterbridge for Getty Images.

22 Dec – 3 Jan 2011 – Tampa Bay, Florida

• Christmas Break

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2011 is a year that is wide open. I will finish my internship, return to London and see what happens from there. Many projects are in the pipeline or being talked about. Let’s see what the 2011 retrospective will be like when it comes to January 2012!

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