Rising photographers born into a family of considerable means and influence have received quite a bit of hate from social media, and often times without reason. No one truly knows what someone such as Brooklyn Beckham has gone through to get where he is. Perhaps his way up was just as complicated as anyone. Perhaps it was not, and he’s lucky to have the background and family he does. It doesn’t change the fact that his work is far from terrible and, as the follower video shows, that is just like all of us, a passionate photographer.
GQ recently created a short 2-minute long documentary on how Brooklyn Beckham became the ACE photographer he is now. While one could guess it’s all about his family, how it could have influenced his current work, it’s actually far from it. If you look at the video above without knowing who David Beckham is, you’d probably imagine that Brooklyn Beckham is just another young and talented photographer who’s made it.
What I found interesting is hearing about the new generation of photographers. While a few years ago, the new growing community was made of more and more photographers that started with digital and not analog cameras, nowadays people like Beckham started with their phone before having the opportunity of getting a camera.
hehehe………ACE photographer, good one.
Ace Ventura
The comments on YouTube are full of hate about look how he dresses and who's he dating but Brooklyn young man you keep skating, shooting and sharing. All great choices. kinda jealous of your
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The background music can you please die?
I have nothing against Brooklyn at all. And all the power to him if he has built a strong, appealing body of work to his fans. But one thing I find interesting is that any time I see work of some celebrity who has fallen in love with photography they always seem to be into this style of old style vintage or black and white shooting. I've noticed the same thing in movies, whenever a character is into photography, its always black and white dark room of street photography.
I know Beckham is now shooting with a Leica digital that is just configured to shoot vintage style now, but he got started with some old vintage film camera he found in an antique store. He seems to have no interest in making images that "look" like they were taken in the past 50 years.
I just find it interesting that none of these sorts of people ever have interest in any other styles of photography. Makes me wonder why. Its an interesting pattern.
It's possibly because most modern work is so shallow. However, I don't really see any such influence in BB's work - it's rather standard igram fodder. Could you give examples of frames where you see such an influence and who the influence is? Because I'm more familiar than most people here with the classics and I can't see anything.
I looked up some of his photography ready to be the brave voice shouting the others down that the man has talent. No to be. He might be using a Leica but they look like camera phone photos from someone who wasn't really paying attention. Possibly there's some Warhol-ian style artist merit to that that's bypassing me completely but this is some poor photography. Given you have a limited number of pages in a book why do you choose to publish this picture of an elephant?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/28/hard-take-picture-elephant-so...
Posh rich kid with a camera......you know I occasionally kick a football around, it does not in any shape of form makes me a footballer.
Good luck to Brooklyn....we can all be generous to what money cannot buy.
That video does him no favours. The editing style and soundtrack completely dominated the narrative. I have no idea what it was about.
So much butthurt in the world. People need to accept he is one lucky sperm. Born with a famous surname will open you doors, thats a fact. Is he a good or bad photographer? who cares? I don't, I have more important things to worry about than someone i don't even know...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWjJVriFL_o
I have nothing against him.
But it's hilarious that he says "I like old interesting faces."
Meanwhile, his Instagram is full of... selfies.
to be fair, just because he's a photographer doesn't mean that his instagram is reserved for his best work. Hell, I make a living with my camera but my instagram is mostly just behind the scenes stuff, food, and yes, a few selfies.
I don't dig this weird style of photography which can be confused for a snapshot.
The other day I went to a photography school in Berlin, open doors, takes 3 years and costs €20K. All was cool until one of the teachers took out a book with photos of one of the students and proudly showed it to the class. They were all blurry black and white with high ISO. Similar to the first iPhone camera I'd say..
so after this I asked him why I need to invest so much time and money to be able to take a blurry photo of a fucking cat. He started to babble some horseshit so I stood up and left. Seriously why is it a thing to have a high end dslr and produce photos worse than the first iPhone?
Thank you for posting a sensible and objective article on this topic, Quentin. When the news broke that this young man was about to publish his book, several people took it as an opportunity to slam him - and the comments that were appended mostly added fuel to the fire. I was disgusted, and made comments on about three such articles. I was brought up by parents who taught me that if you don't have anything nice to say, it is better to say nothing. Like anyone else, Brooklyn will succeed or fail according to how good he is at taking photos, and how well he gets on with customers. NOT (as some people seem to think) just because his parents are wealthy or well known.
And I really can't see any reason why anyone should make destructive remarks about him. Especially photographers. We all derive so much benefit and so much pleasure from sharing our knowledge and our work, and this kind of negativity is quite uncalled for. Trolls are supposed to share "social network pages" like Twitter and Facebook - not photographic groups. :)
cringe
Huge respect for Brooklyn. I can't imagine being so ruthlessly criticized for simply just enjoying my passion.
I don't he is - or that there is an excuse for you to believe this. He's being criticised for being a talentless photographer who uses family connections to promote himself. And it's not like he's actually pursued: people are commenting on article, the way they are supposed to.
Even if he uses connections to promote himself and used them to get where he's now, what's terribly bad about it? It's like saying someone won the lottery and uses the money to do whatever he wants and likes, what's so wrong with that? The world is not fair, people need to get over it and stop hating on people that actually DO what they want to do and don't just talk about it.
No, it's not. It's like saying the guy who won the lottery and used the money to promote himself is bad... IF HE IS BAD. Which BB is - I had an open mind on this, but he had no discernible talent.
...Paying for PR shouldn't grant immunity to criticism. I'm astonished that this needs explaining.
Why not. He likes being a shooter Yeah he had an advantage. But if Julian Lennon too has become a passionate photog (and he's good). I say why not.
>>GQ recently created a short 2-minute long documentary on how Brooklyn Beckham became the ACE photographer he is now. While one could guess it’s all about his family, how it could have influenced his current work, it’s actually far from it. If you look at the video above without knowing who David Beckham is, you’d probably imagine that Brooklyn Beckham is just another young and talented photographer who’s made it
It takes a remarkable degree of sycophancy or gullibility to make a statement like that. Yes, the film doesn't say that he's a talentless nobody with the right parents. It wouldn't - it's a PR piece...
I have so much respect for Brooklyn, well done to him for going after what he loves. I hope he has even more success. Thank you for posting this Quentin.
Quentin, I am embarrassed for you. Your article is nothing but a gushing puff piece by a fanboy. Nothing a journalist or even a professional of any sort should be proud of. Talented? yeh right. Was Fstoppers paid to run this article?
Perhaps in the years to come this young man will create a good body of work in a world that is closed to many of us. I have no hate for this guy...as a father I'll try and open as many doors for my son as I could too.