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Big Up by Ben Watts – Photography from 89 to 03

10 December 2004 No Comment

Big Up is a photographic scrapbook of America’s raucous youth culture from 1989 to 2003, created by one of the brightest young photographers in the fashion industry. The book’s design preserves all of the qualities of a photo album and reflects the passion of his subjects and the feeling of their environments. The pages are fantastic collages of images, scribbled notes and bits and pieces (an airplane boarding pass, an entry ticket) from a decade of travel on assignment for magazines and advertising campaigns.

The limited hardcover edition of this extraordinary document was so eagerly sought that all 1,500 copies were accounted for before the book was even released! Now PA Press is reissuing Big Up in a handy paperback format that’s sure to capture the imagination. 

Ben Watts has rapidly emerged as one of today’s top photographers. His collection of photographic moments captured both on assignment and while working on personal projects covers a broad range of subjects, from street photography to fashion shoots, from Hip Hop culture to high school wrestlers. Watts’ images not only show the personal visual diary of an artist, but provide a new look at what it means to be young and urban. Often with short notes from himself or his subjects scribbled on the photos, or with bits and pieces from the “site” (an airplane boarding pass, an entry ticket), Watts’ images are put together in fantastic collages and combinations that are humorous and insightful at the same time.

Big Up is Ben Watts’ personal scrapbook reproduced in a large-format book that preserves all the qualities of a photo album. His images—vibrant, energetic, and sensuous—take readers on a photographic journey that stays in mind long after the book has been put down. 

JUST SOME OF THE CELEBS SEEN IN BIG UP:

Chris Rock, Lenox Lewis, Missy Elliot, Flava Flav, Run DMC, FunkMaster Flex, D’Angelo, DMX, Usher, Interpol, Trech, Nelly, Ludicris, GrandMaster Caz & Kay Gee (Cold Crush Brothers), Naomi Watts, MC Serch, Miss Melody, Adam Yauch, Goldie, Super Grass, Eve, KRS 1, Pink, Vin Diesel, Bobbito, Oscar de la Hoya, and Juliette Lewis.

PLUS B-BOYS & B-GIRLS FROM NYC and MIAMI INCLUDING:

Crazy Legs (RSC), Dino (R.I.P.), Ground Zero Crew, Bebe (GZC), Concep, Nyte Crawla, Nyce (BDP), Rocism, Honey Rockwell, Boo Rok (GZC), Flea (RSC), Cloud and many more. Watts obviously attended several Rock Steady Anniversaries and a battle or two in Miami! 

THEN THERE’S THE CLASSIC SHOTS OF: 

La West Side Familia, The Guardian Angels, The Latin Kings, boxing clubs in NYC & Dublin, double dutch teams in Brooklyn, NYC Puerto Rican Day Parades, old time Boriqua bicycle clubs, graff bombed trucks and doors, sound systems in Jamaica and Queens, and skaters in the South Bronx and Mexico.

OTHER SHOOTING LOCATIONS INCLUDE: 

Argentina, Jamaica, Havana, Sydney, Hawaii, Coney Island, Harlem, Puerto Rico, Asbury Park, London, Japan, Hollywood, NYC basketball courts, skate parks, plus the Powerhouse and Tunnel nightclubs in NYC.

About the Author

Ben Watts, born in London, England in 1967, was a student at the Sydney College of Arts from 1985 -1990. He started his photographic career in Australia, first working as a photographer’s assistant, but soon taking on commissions of 
his own, shooting for Australian Elle and Vogue Fascinated by American Hip Hop culture, he came to New York in 1990 and began documenting urban youth, hitting the streets and clubs of the city in his attempt to capture his subjects on film. He moved to New York in 1995, and has since shot advertising campaigns for Nike, Jockey, Polo, Ralph Lauren, Kodak, The Gap, Sony, Tommy Boy, Apple and many more. He is a regular contributor to numerous magazines, including New York Times Magazine, GQ, Interview, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Trace, Tokion, Esquire and Elle. His work has also been published in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Outside Magazine, Travel & Leisure, and Conde’ Nast Traveler, among others. 

Editorial reviews

XLR8R

“[Big Up] chronicles an obsession with street culture, from muscled giants with oversize boomboxes to weed-wielding reggae dons to carefully-coifed mods on the back of (what else?) white Vespas. The book includes a smattering of portraits of Hip Hop celebs (from Ludacris to DMX to Missy), but this collection’s at its best when Watts pastes together Polaroid out-takes with masking tape, creating collages of pre-teen Irish boxers preparing for their first fight and documenting New York’s Puerto Rican Pride parade in candy-colored detail. Originally released as a hardcover late last year, BIG UP is now available in a more affordable softcover format, and it provides days worth of cerebral cortex stimulation, not to mention style ideas.” (2004) 

Village Voice:
“Big Up, a hectic insider’s view of the past dozen years of urban youth culture by London-born, Australian-raised Ben Watts, is too wild and too idiosyncratic to go unmentioned. The spontaneity and verve Watts packs into his pictures are perfectly mirrored in the book’s scrapbook-style design. Cut up, collaged, crayoned, and tagged with markers, the photos feel less like fixed, flattened documents than little time bombs about to explode. This sense of terrific, barely contained energy makes Big Up big fun, and the ideal time capsule for a style moment that just won’t quit.” 

Esquire:
“Whether Watts is shooting super models or New York City street kids, his work reflects a certain edge that he draws out of his characters.” (March 2003)

The Face:
“People on the exciting and intrepid brink of adulthood have been documented by one of the fastest rising stars in photography, who has the eye and ability to make this tricky job look all too easy and obvious…His book, BIG UP, is 
a vibrant collection of photos and a notebook of works in progress.” (12/2003)

TRACE:
“Now that Ben is shooting for some of the world’s most popular magazines, not to mention his major advertising campaigns for global brands, this month’s publication of his first monograph – ‘Big Up!’ (Princeton Architectural Press), due out October, 2003 – is most welcome because it will reconnect the 
photographer to his roots.” (Fall 2003)

GQ:
“From bling-blinged rap stars to corn fed wrestlers to boom-boxing beach bums, streetwise photographer (and GQ contributor) Ben Watts captures a colorful, 
cool crowd.” (October 2003)

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