Jonathan May’s instinctual ability to take a concept and tell a fascinating visual story is both innovative and compelling.
Jonathan loves to find interesting characters and unconventional locations, using colour and treatments to heighten the visual experience. His work visually engages us by drawing us in to share the experience of the subject.
Lurzers Archive magazine named Jonathan one of the Top 200 International Advertising photographers for the past three years.
Jonathan has exhibited in Moscow, Sydney, London, Paris and in the Ivory Coast he held a private exhibition for the president Alassane Ouattara.
Jonathan’s great love is the quirky, creative, concept-driven advertising that comes out of true collaboration with art directors.
Currently Jonathan has representation in Los Angeles, Sydney, and Moscow.
About ‘Desert Ink’:
Desert Ink is a tale of 8 Mexican tattoo artists from the wrong side of the tracks, who following their love of art and ink found the will to change. With identities forged in street furnaces of gang-banging, bullet wounds, drug dealing and jail time, this band of men crafted new identities, forming a new type of gang, united by art and their determination to earn a decent living, , rising from the trappings of their nefarious past lives.
It all started in a kitchen in West Hollywood over breakfast with my good friend, William Taylor. His mother had just passed away and he started talking about getting a tattoo done to honour her. The design he wanted was praying hands with a rosary, and the tattoo artists that he had to have were Chip and the crew from Art and Ink.
Billy told me that the guys at Art and Ink were Mexican gang members who had seen the error of their ways and found a more enlightened path. He wanted to do a reality show on them. I cancelled my agency meetings in LA and drove straight down to meet them.
Their story is redemption through art and tattooing, so I decided to turn up without a camera on our first meeting. Instead I had my photography portfolio to show the guys and connect with them through my own art, and ended up spending the weekend with them and building a solid rapport. This is one of the most underrated aspects on documentary photography.
I knew from before the first frame fired that I wanted to shoot this project in black and white, the Mexican tattoo style is black and grey and it was very fitting to not show any colour. Black and grey tattooing started in Mexican prisons in the ‘70s, when inmates had limited access to materials.
They resorted to using guitar strings for needles and cigarette ash and pens for ink. Because it was a single needle they were able to apply the tattoo with amazing detail and that is where the portrait style graphic imagery was born. It was all shot on the Leica M9P, giving me the intimate access I needed with the guys and helping them to relax.
