VII is excited to announce our first boxed portfolio print sale.
Available for purchase from May 17 through May 31, 2018 are portfolios reciprocally curated by Jocelyn Bain Hogg and Stefano De Luigi.
Jocelyn Bain Hogg and Stefano De Luigi have both been members of VII since 2008 so these boxed sets mark their tenth anniversary of being members of the agency. Not only that, but since joining, they have become great friends. Their first books were both deemed risqué yet ground-breaking on publication and remain so to this day. The Firm (2001) and Pornoland (2004) looked closely at the worlds of organized crime and the porn industry respectively but both books are now long out of print. To celebrate Jocelyn and Stefano’s anniversary and friendship and to bring new life to these, their first major projects, they decided to reintroduce the work to a new audience. The idea of boxed portfolios was born with Stefano making an edit of The Firm and Jocelyn choosing his selection from Pornoland. We look forward to these beautiful sets inspiring more boxed portfolios to come from all of VII’s photographers, one editing one another’s work thence offering new ways to have rare series of major projects for collectors and photography lovers alike.
About the Box Sets
The sets are limited to only 25 copies worldwide with the boxes numbered and signed and the 15 10” x 8” archival C types signed on the back of the image. Within the box is a personal statement from each photographer about the work they edited and their own projects and a captioned template of the enclosed photographs.
The box sets will ship around 3 weeks from the end of the sale.
Contact [email protected] with any questions.
Pornoland
Pornoland is a work that I consider a turning point in my career as an author. It gave me an authorial dimension and allowed me to understand it was possible to experiment, to go beyond the rigid limits of reportage photography while preserving its language. All my subsequent works and projects derive from this happy intuition that this work offered to me. I am very happy to be able to celebrate ten years of membership in VII together with Jocelyn Bain Hogg and at the same time with the author that I feel to be a true brother in arms for photographic research and interests. Let’s celebrate together our ten-year friendship, that happens in parallel with us coming aboard VII.
When I first saw this project back in the early 2000’s I was delighted and amazed by the vibrancy of the images but also the intimacy and indeed kindness with which Stefano had approached this difficult and contentious subject. It’s easy to judge and that’s the one thing photographers in our field must strive to avoid and having just come out of that same situation having just published my first book the Firm, I saw a kindred spirit here. These darker elements of society are all too easily derided or even glamourised in photographs but not by Stefano de Luigi. This first major work by Stefano still has huge resonance because of its humanism. None of the protagonists are treated with disdain or derision yet he remains the objective observer, looking wryly at this world with humour and good spirit moreover with really great photographic storytelling. Editing this box set has been an honour and reminded me that I felt I knew him from this work. He is a like-mind indeed. I’m proud to say that we have both been members of VII since 2008 where we have fast become great friends. We share ideas and help one another with projects now which certainly makes for a better life in photography! And not only is he a great photographer, his humanism marks him as a great man too.
The Firm
The Firm, my first book, published in 2001 really polarized this career in photojournalism and began as many of these projects do, with an assignment photographing two members of the British underworld. It spiraled from there and took five years to complete. It was definitely a labour of love.
Photographing people who exist outside of the confines of so-called ‘normal’ society requires a balancing act where respect is given to the subject and judgement is not made but above all mutual trust is the enabling force. This is also what I see in Stefano’s work.
I will always stand by this first project and learned so much in attempting to shed some light on a dark world. The British underworld has changed over the time that’s elapsed since the book was published and these images have become part of history which allows a new resonance for a new time. For myself, The Firm led to a further seven book projects on different aspects of our society and pushed forward a photographic journey that continues to this day.
This limited portfolio edition, edited by Stefano de Luigi, in conjunction with his amazing first project Pornoland also heralds both of our ten year memberships in VII. Perhaps more importantly it also led to a great and lasting friendship with Stefano, brothers in arms indeed.
When I found out about ‘The Firm’, I felt less lonely. It was 2001, and I was in the midst of working on the “Pornoland” project. I felt a sense of brotherhood towards this work and its author, who has, since then, become one of my dearest friends. We both explored – through the language of photo-reportage- worlds that are closed and not exactly mainstream. Both of us were somehow outsiders in the conventional world of reportage. This year marks an important anniversary for me: ten years ago I met this great author, we got onboard the VII Agency together; this certainly made us stronger professionally. However, through these ten years we have also built a friendship. I got a ‘complice’, and a person with whom I regularly deal with projects and works, which has become for me one of the cornerstones of my professional history with VII. “Auguri”, brother in arms, and best wishes to both The Firm and Pornoland.
