Graffiti Photography: Capture Urban Art's Essence

Although some friend from London recently told me that this year’s Meeting of Styles wasn’t as wicked as last year’s, on the hundreds of photos you can find online it looks like a big and crazy outdoor party! This annual British edition of the international Meeting of Styles event brings together some of the most talented graffiti artists from all over Europe and has grown from 15 artists and one main wall in its first year to a full scale outdoor block party and street exhibition in 2010 and 2011, including 60 handpicked graffiti artists painting walls, canvases, and boards throughout the day to a backdrop of hip-hop, reggae, ska and more… ...

During the last week, well-known French graffiti artist Blo, who is a member of the famous Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) crew, painted a huge new black-and-white mural in Berlin! After Caleb Neelon’s wall and the painting by Victor Ash, this is the third part of Berlin’s Wedding Walls mural art project. In my eyes, this monochromatic, 25 meters high piece totally works out with the old-school Berlin wall color (some kind of light beige-shit-brown) and is a new attraction in Berlin’s north! ...

London-based photographer Brian David Stevens just informed me about his latest project: Documenting writers at the well-known Leake St Tunnel in London! At the moment this graffiti-photography series includes some quite nice, contrasty snap-shots, focusing not the finished piece but the artists and their equipment… Leake St Tunnel, also known as Banksy tunnel, was initially decorated with graffiti during the Cans Festival back in 2008. Since then it’s legal to paint inside the tunnel, for what reason it attracts a lot of London-based writers and tourists. ...

Graffiti Photography | Alex Fakso is well-known around the world and with good reason part of my top urban art photographers list! Although his astonishing graffiti action photographs have already been featured in the nice “Heavy Metal” book, Fakso recently published a new book called “Fast or Die”! And although this is something like a successor “Fast or Die” focuses not just on the atmosphere of plain graffiti, but also on subways… ...

Graffiti Photography | After I met famous Austrian-based graffiti artist Nychos in London, I caught up with him in Berlin a few days ago! Again we spent almost a half day on a roof somewhere in a big city and again I photographically documented his work… Nychos is well-known around the world for his main street art concept “The Rabbit Eye Movement” (REM), for what reason you can find his often angry and sometimes crazy rabbit graffiti not just in Vienna, London and Berlin, but also in Melbourne, Barcelona, Paris and other big metropolises around the globe! ...

Graffiti Artist in Action | Do you remember all the urban artists like Herakut or Ben Eine who did live paintings as a part of the Moniker Art Fair earlier this year? Another famous artist who painted at Village Underground was Hamilton Yokota aka Titi Freak! While the São Paulo-born graffiti artist created a colorful mural on one of these nice brick walls in East London, I took some photos of him in action. Yesterday I had some time and uploaded them to my urban art photography blog, so you are now able to type in the letters www.urbanart-photography.eu into your web browser, to take a look at the Titi Freak photos and to give me some feedback. ...

Artist in Action | Last month, famous Austrian graffiti artist Nychos exhibited at Pure Evil Gallery in London. During his stay in the British capital I caught up with him on top of a roof in Shoreditch and took a nice graffiti action photo-series. Thanks to the bright sun and my friend Probs for making the shooting possible and to Revert and Inkfetish for the good company! Nychos, who is mainly known around the globe for his prolific street art concept “Rabbit Eye Movement”, combines in his urban artworks his cartoonist and illustrator attitude as well as his personal development and a big portion of humorous remarks and fun. ...

Graffiti Legend | Everyone who has something to do with graffiti or urban arts in general should have heard about Mr. Jon Naar. Naar is, in addition to Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant, one of the first photojournalists who documented graffiti and its environment in New York City! His legendary book “The Faith Of Graffiti” was published about 35 years ago and has been re-released in an expanded edition earlier this year. For that reason there were again a lot of specials about him and his book, his photographies and his opinion about the entire graffiti world… ...

London Graffiti | London-based graffiti artist Ben Eine is probably one of the most famous British graffiti artists and that not just since David Cameron has given one of his paintings to President Obama. Eine’s bold letters especially those on the shutters and of course the so called Alphabet Street are well-known around the globe! Last weekend, I met Ben while he and his crew spray-painted a new wall in Shoreditch as a part of the Moniker Art Fair which will open its doors this Thursday. Again he clearly arranged big bold letters, this time forming the word calculate. ...

Here is a photo-series of another London-based graffiti artist: Dan Kitchener was already in action, when I accidentally met him at Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch some days ago. He was going to spray-paint a much larger version of his Urban Landscapes and finished the large-scale and more or less greyscale piece after six or seven hours of work… Those of you who want to see more nice photos of that pure graffiti action, have to take a look on my new “Street Artists in Action” project over there on Urban Art Photography! ...