Edward Olive | A Photographer You Should Know [GP Feature]
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If you haven’t noticed, the Gear Patrol team appreciates top notch photography. To that effect we knew that Edward Olive would be the first to kick off the Gear Patrol Features, what we aim to be a reoccurring piece bringing you some a dose of culture and some generally thought provoking content.
We know you’re busy and who has time to read through pages of droning writing, we sure don’t. So, in typical Gear Patrol style we’ll keep them succinct.
Madrid, Spain based Edward Olive, is a find from the amazing visual cornucopia known as, flickr.com. Olive’s work is sharp, edgy, and offers more perspective than you’ll ever find in traditional photography; utterly surreal and from the photos we’ve been provided by Edward, teeming with sex appeal. All this from a former lawyer.
Better yet is watching Olive’s rising appreciation through the web. Tens of thousands of visitors clamor to see his latest works daily. We find ourselves of kindrid spirits.
Olive is a traditionalist, shooting exclusively with vintage cameras: Hassleblads, Rolleiflex and Mamiyas. The result is a grainy look that humbles the thought of digital in one fell swoop. Olive, not normally prone to release images to the web has agreed to share two larger images with Gear Patrol to share with our readers.
Edward Olive’s biography and photos (slightly NSFW) after the jump.
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Edward Olive is a fine art photographer & actor born in Dublin, Ireland, brought up in Whitley Bay in the North East of England, former city lawyer in London & Paris and now resident in Madrid, Spain where he makes his real living from screen acting (mainly toilet paper and hamburger chain adverts) and upscale wedding photography.
His work is still underground. He has never won a photography competition, never had an exhibition of his work, never had a picture published even in a collective photography publication. He decided to take matters into his own hands in a virtual world and uploads pictures to the web on an almost daily basis which now receive literally tens of thousands of visits per day.
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He works almost exclusively with vintage cameras such as hasselblad, rolleiflex and mamiya and shoots only out of date film to give his pictures “a grainy vintage look, an unpredictability of colours and tones and a touch of sex pistols”. While most professional photographers go the way of clean digital images and stereotyped safety, Edward Olive looks back to a oddly coloured fantasy world of 1970’s short skirts, black and white busty female wedding guests that has his clients nearly throwing him out of his wedding jobs when they catch him climbing on chairs to catch low cut tops or crawling under tables to get…
A photographer to watch out for.
We hope to feature more of Olive’s work here on Gear Patrol with you in the coming weeks.
Visit Edward Olive’s site: edwardolive.net or his photos on flickr.
I tried to comment before but i think my comment didn’t work
Thank you for your kind words above
I started off in photography wanting to express innocent childlike emotions and opinions freely
emotional outbursts have recently got me into trouble. they have upset people also.
i have had to delete many public internet pictures, make other private and delete any controversial comments
the picture you see above of the ladies in the bar is for example not available on my own website
i remember when i first went to northern france as a child and saw hot ladies on the beach topless. i always intended to keep that feeling along with others and to put it into my work. i intended my work to have a sense of humour, a play on words, social commentary, sex appeal, feelings of tranqulity and stillness, a feeling of solitude or silence.
it is hard though when you live in a shared flat with the roof falling down and wind that blows through the window frames in the winter not to just do the photos that people pay you to do the way they pay you to do so that you can eat and perhaps one day have a nice place to live.
i understand people pay me to take the photos they want and it makes them happy. my own personal artistic ideas and pretensions
will be put aside for any personal work i have time, energy or emotion left for.
i am separating work from art. if there is any more “art” left.
i have made this comment politically correct and balanced enough that it can be read. in fact it was rewritten.
ciao edward
Hola Ed…. un saludo desde tu nuevo Olimpo…. Descuida siempre tendrás un ojo encima….
Siempre buscando la belleza en este asqueroso mundo…
Un abrazo….Jordi
First off, congrats Ed!
This guy is my inspiration. He’s so far out there in his work and his “f@%K it” attitude towards art snobs, rich art snobs, rich snobs, and the “rules” of photography keep my own work on track. I guess I’d call it refreshing, especially for someone coming from the artificial and clean digital world.
Apparently he can act too…
this guy is hugely inspirational
not just what he sees, but how he captures it
one of the finest artists i’ve had the opportunity of knowing (virtually). totally inspiring !
thankyou kind gear patrol readers
it is only really because of people like you supporting me and understanding what i am trying to do that i cn continue with this game. this week only such kind words and the prospect of some new nice female fitness champions in very small bikinis to shoot stopped me putting my cameras on ebay.
kind words and ladies in small bikinis make the world go round
ciao
edward
Definitely the most inspiring artist I have come across on Flickr. I don’t think there’s been a single time when I haven’t found something rewarding in his photos and it’s a difficult task not to add every one to my favourites list. I sincerely hope you keep going Edward, one day you will be famous.
Underground meets high society
Raw jazz meets opera theaters
Vintage comes into the future…
This is ego trip. This is porn.
We´re talking about Ed Olive!
thankyou gentlemen. if i did not have people who understand what i am trying to do i would have stopped already. ciao edward
he is the ” best “