If you haven’t already, check out Simon Annand’s illuminating portraits of actors at The Idea Generation Gallery. Taken moments before they step into the footlights, each portrait is a study in concentrated emotion. Often pensive, with an air of mystery, they are private moments shared with the photographer.

Annand has been photographing actors in the final half an hour before curtain up for 25 years. In 2008 he published The Half, a book of his work, but he continues to add to his oeuvre and the exhibition includes new and unseen images of London’s leading theatrical lights. His work gives theatre lovers unprecedented access to a who’s who of performers, with humour, fear and always intimacy. The Half brings the dressing room to life, making it a stage of its own.

Simon Annand: The Half is at the Idea Generation Gallery until 8 April 2012

simonannand.com

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Tags: Idea Generation, Simon Annand, Tha Half

What would you do if a man approached you in the street and asked you to put on his headphones? For 167 out of the 200 people Michael Burdett asked, their response was to listen. What met their ears was a version of Nick Drake’s soaring Cello Song, not heard for over 30 years.

In the Seventies, Burdett was a post-boy at Island Records when he came across a dumped tape intriguingly labelled, “Nick Drake, Cello Song. With love.” It was 20 years before he actually listened to it, discovering an earthy version of Drake’s famed song and another few years passed before he decided what to do with his discovery. Inspiredly, instead of releasing it into the online ether, Burdett  travelled the length and breadth of Britian, stopping some famous people and some not on streets, hills and work places to offer them a chance to hear the song. Each time, he took a portrait of the listener.

The results are now on display at the Idea Generation gallery in East London. The Strange Face Project, takes it’s name from the first line of Cello Song and also refers to the expressions Burdett observed of his listeners and a fitting ode to one of music’s lost talents.

The Strange Face Project is at the Idea Generation gallery until Sunday, February 12.
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Tags: Cello Song, Idea Generation, Michael Burdett, Nick Drake, The Strange Face Project