Up Town Top Rankin

Goldie's be-jewelled hands, halo's in his eyes, a snarl reflecting from his bullion teeth, baggy jeans.

Madonna's veins bursting from her muscle packed arms, Earth Mother / Holy Mother Hair


Bjork's intense eye peeking through her Icelandic wind-blown hair


This is what I think of when I think of Rankin's photography, images that I have looked at and loved for many years..

Now having been Ranked as part of Rankin Live in association with OXFAM I can add sound to my thoughts:

"Ooh you look like a sinister child. Click. Like a sinister child from a film. Click click. You'd make a good witch....Click, I mean a good witch...Click, a sexy one... that's it, talk to the camera with your eyes, Click... put your head on your shoulder, Click, chin up a little, nice, nice... Click, you've got a strong face...amazing eyes, amazing...Click..."

And some new visions:

The void of a cavernous camera lens surrounded by a bright interrogation light, the hair-stylist with a fan, various other assistants doing I don't know what cos I'm trying ever so hard to look like Kate Moss or Anna Friel.

It's comparable to being an altered state of consciousness, like being blind drunk with only the sound of the surrounding world, or that of your own voice to comfort you. Except in this instance, the voice is Rankin's and he's asking me to look through the tunnel, through the camera. He's not unlike a male siren, luring his prey with a song that ends in (flat) death by photograph; A mantic creature whom by default of his medium, simultaneously sees that which has passed (a live moment) and that which is still to occur- frozen, flattened reflections of those moments which with a press of a button, become destined to live on forever as images embedded into monitors and sheets of chemically treated paper.




In other words, Rankin's got some lines and he's not afraid of using them to get the images that he desires.

My own moment of charitable, photographic death by siren-camera was recorded last Thursday at approximately 1pm (see...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8177751.stm "Another woman in a green dress danced to Ultravox throughout her shoot." Note- I requested Donna Summer!).

I hope to be able to point you towards it soon.