5 Minutes With Lee Jenkins

As a teenager Lee Jenkins discovered photography by making pictures of his surfer and skateboarding friends. From there he spent several years studying fine art and photography completing them with a masters at Royal college of Art in London the late 80’s.

Having first cut his teeth and passion for fashion with the “Face” magazine in the early 90’s Lee’s rich, dramatic and often colourful photo images often depict and reveal an intense sometimes magical world that transcends the norms of fashion photography. He draws inspiration from many sources out side the world of fashion from the worlds of Cinema, dance an the arts often capturing and encapsulating a lighter more optimistic euphoric side of life.

Lee spends most of his time now travelling between foreign assignments…. London, Paris, New York and his organic farm in Norfolk, working on personal work and travelling wherever his commercial work may take him.

Q1. What was the first record you bought and what effect did it have on you?

Lee Jenkins: I was very young...went with my uncle and bought “God save the Queen”........the Rest is History!!!!



Q2. When did you first pick up a camera and what inspired you to start taking photographs?

LJ: I first picked up a camera and got into the water with all my friends surfing in Wales........the next obvious stage was to go with a mate and surf our way around the west coast of California and making skateboard images in places like the original Upland skatepark and swimming pools across California & Mexico when I was a teenager

Q3. There is an innate positivity to your photographs. How do you maintain that aesthetic given the current state of the world?

LJ: I try to rflect how I feel.........Quite simple happiness comes from within me.......it is not dependant what goes in in the world.....to be honest I'm not really sure what the current state of the world is?

Q4. Having started early in your career with The Face in the early 90’s, do you feel that the editorial world is becoming more 'online centric?' Do you miss magazines like The Face?

Yes yes yes!!! I miss it so much.....Great editors....art directors........ there were only really a handful of magazines at the time know I guess there are more magazines than sense it wouldn't surprise to read a statistic that there is one magazine for every hundred people on the planet

Q5. Can you tell me a bit about your organic farm in Norfolk? What drew you to farming?

The farm is a big project we are incorporating permaculture principles into a whole eco system we are co creating with nature, producing a self sustaining closed system where people can come help, we are also making it an educational centre.......where people can learn/study how to work with the earth, yoga/meditaion workshops...learn raw food skills...art/photography.......herbal remedies/medicine...and so on.....

http://www.leejenkins.co.uk/