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Hands Down

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Portraits of interesting peoples’ hands by Michael Goldrei. Inc: Ai Weiwei, John Waters, Russell Tovey, Professor Green. Main account: @numbersix

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62. James Swanton, Actor

While I was working as the Stills Photographer on British horror film ‘The Thing That Ate the Birds’ in July 2019, I had the fortune to meet the incredibly talented actor, James Swanton (@jamescswanton ). He was playing the role of the beastly Thing of the film’s title, which involved many hours of make-up for him (both it’s application and removal). I have a particularly fond memory of him being in a rush to leave one day, with bits of makeup still flapping on him.

He has since been a stalwart of the screen, particularly when it comes to Horror, appearing on TV in ‘Inside No.9’, in Mark Gatiss’ ‘A Ghost Story for Christmas’, and in films such as ‘Apartment 7A’, ‘The Severed Sun’, and ‘Dashcam’. by @hand_portraits

61. I met Ben Eine (@einesigns ) a second time in Spitalfields Market, London at an exhibition both he and I had some work in, back in July 2019. It was all thanks to him (unintentionally) being Participant No. 1 that I started my Hands Down series.

If you scroll back to my very first post, he had been commissioned to create an artwork in the lobby of the office I worked in at the time. He had such interesting tattoos on his hands, that I had the idea of starting a series where I wondered whether you can tell something about a person’s life/job from their hands.

I couldn’t resist asking him if I could photograph an update to show the additional tattoos he’d had in the subsequent four years. Thanks for being such a good sport Mr Eine! by @hand_portraits

60. Mark Wallinger, Artist

If you’ve travelled on the London Underground since 2013, you’ll have seen Mark Wallinger’s ‘Labyrinth’ (@mark_wallinger_mark ) series of artworks. These are circular maze designs in black and white in a square print, which were commissioned for the 150th anniversary of the London Underground and hang on the wall of all 270 tube stations that existed at the time. Each is numbered according to the order in which participants of the ‘Guinness World Record Tube Challenge’ carry out the task. This challenge involves people visiting every station on the underground network as fast as possible (at the time of writing, this record is held by Steve Wilson and Andi James, who completed the task in 15 hours, 45 minutes, 38 seconds).

When I visited the launch of his 2019 exhibition ‘Upside Down Inside Out Back to Front’ at Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna, it happened to feature some large-scale symmetrical Rorschach test-like paintings he’d made using his hand prints, making him a particularly apt subject for a hand portrait. The paintings are the width of his arm span, and double his height. He joked when I took photos of him in front of them that I’d discover he’s a fraud when his hands don’t match the painted ones! I’m always appreciative when people throw themselves into posing for my photos and, as you can see, Mr Wallinger was a kind and understanding subject! by @hand_portraits

59. Anthony Burrill, Graphic artist, Print-maker and Designer

Anthony Burrill (@anthonyburrill ) is both a designer’s designer, and someone who creates art enjoyed by the masses. He’s known for his striking print designs featuring large bold type and bold colours (‘Work Hard & Be Nice To People’ being perhaps his best-known). I met him at the Forward Festival in Vienna, 2019 and these were taken in the Gartenbaukino cinema where the event took place. by @hand_portraits

58. Steve Mason, Musician

Prior to performing under his own name, I first knew of Steve Mason (@stevemasonofficial )‘s work when hearing The Beta Band (which he performed vocals, guitar and percussion in) on the radio. It was 1998 and I heard their song ‘Inner Meet Me’ (on Mary Anne Hobbs’ show on Radio 1 I believe). I was blown away that music could sound like this. At a time when most music felt like a rehash of something that had come before, The Beta Band fused Indie, Dance, Rock, Psychedelia and more, and came up with more than the sum of their parts.

I spotted him at a queue in Pret a Manger at Gatwick Airport back in 2019 and couldn’t help approaching him to express my love of his music (from The Beta Band to the present day). I’d also designed a 3D screensaver as a download on the original Beta Band website, circa 1999, which he understandably had no memory of! by @hand_portraits

54. Ai Weiwei, Artist

I first became aware of Ai Weiwei’s (@aiww ) work when I saw his Sunflower Seeds exhibition at Tate Modern in 2010. The 100 Million porcelain seeds on the museum’s floor became infamous as so many people were stealing them. I attempted this myself, by trying to send my godson under the artwork’s barrier, but his father put a stop to this plan.

Three years later, I saw the excellent ‘#aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei’ at Hampstead Theatre, a play based on his arrest at Beijing airport, and subsequent vanishing.

Fortunately he was released after 81 days, and has continued to create fascinating, imaginative and eye-catching artworks ever since.

I met him in January 2019 at the opening of an exhibition of his work in Vienna. Having hoped to get the opportunity to photograph his hands, I brought two professional cameras with me, but was asked by security to leave these in the museum’s lockers. He turned out to be very generous with his time, taking selfies with people (me included), signing things, and I was at least able to capture this photo with my iPhone. by @hand_portraits

Olivier Kugler, Illustrator

I first saw Olivier’s work (@olivier_kugler_illustration ) in The Guardian circa 2007, where his reportage illustrations regularly blew my mind and I’d have to tear them out of the newspaper for safekeeping. The series on his travels from the Shetlands to Cuba is particularly memorable and pushed the boundaries for me on what illustration can be. His combination of linework, colour and lettering work perfectly together, and there’s something magical about the way certain items in his illustrations cross over to areas where perhaps they shouldn’t be, but this technique makes everything look better.

I met up with him in 2018 where we’d agreed to do a book swap: my book ‘chromorama’ for his ‘Escaping Wars and Waves’. I highly recommend buying a copy. by @hand_portraits

Tim Hunkin, Cartoonist, Engineer

Most of these hand portraits come about by chance encounters in the street, attending an event or, at the most, arranging a visit in the same city. But in the case of one of my all-time heroes, it took a flight, two trains and a bus to reach Mr Hunkin in the seaside town of Southwold.

I first got to know of his work when, as a kid, I was given a copy of his book ‘Almost Everything There Is To Know’, which featured a collection of his comic strips, featuring quirkly-drawn figures, explaining how almost anything you could think of works (e.g. waves, left handedness, and cows). His TV series ‘The Secret Life of Machines’ brought this same fun and quirky approach to explaining how household items worked, such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Thanks to him and his assistant Rex taking apart these machines and doing crazy things with them, this turned out to be far more fascinating than one might expect.

Thanks to Tim Hunkin’s love of creating and tinkering with machines, I have many happy memories of encountering these on trips to London as a child, such as his water clock and modified fairground machines in Covent Garden. One such machine included putting your hand in it while a dog drooled onto you, while another, the ‘Autofrisk’ gave a security guard-style frisk with an unexpected ending!

Many of these machines are still available to play today in London at the Novelty Automation museum (@novelty_automation ) and at Hunkin’s Under the Pier Show in Southwold (@southwold_pier ) which is where I made my pilgrimage to meet him. I highly recommend a trip to either! He also has an excellent new series on Youtube, ‘The Secret Life of Components’. by @hand_portraits

John Romero, Game Designer & Programmer

As a child growing up in the 1980s, I saw computer games develop from green text on a screen, to side-scrolling platform games, followed by 3D graphics that could actually give you the sensation you were deep inside of the action. All of these methods included games that were able to frighten the living daylights out of me, but none more so than Doom. Released in 1993, this first-person shooter gave the closest experience, thanks to it’s visual and sound design, to actually being inside a sci-fi horror film.

Much of this terror is thanks to the game’s designer John Romero @theromero (as well as that of the equally bed-wetting horrors of Doom II and Quake). I was lucky enough to catch the evil genius behind these games in Vienna in May 2018. Thanks to the design of the roof inside the venue, I was able to get this shot that (if you squint) just about looks like it could be one of his games. by @hand_portraits

Brenda Romero, Game Designer & Developer

Brena Romero (@blromero66 ) is a legend in the video games world, having worked in it since 1981 and being named as the woman with the longest continuous service in video game development.
She is best known for working on the Wizardry series of role-playing video games, which paved the way for things such as Final Fantasy. She’s also worked on the Dungeons & Dragons games, as well as the ‘Playboy: The Mansion’ game.

Brenda is currently Program Director of the MSc program in Game Design and Development at the University of Limerick.

I had the honour of meeting her at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2018 in Vienna, and she was a kind and willing subject for this hand portrait by @hand_portraits

Angie Jones, Senior Automation Engineer, Twitter

I met Angie (@techgirl1908 ) at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2018 tech conference in Vienna, at which she gave a talk on the development of ubiquitous social networks. She’s also well-known for supporting and sharing her wealth of knowledge with female programmers.

At the time I took this Angie had the above title at Twitter but, as this was some time ago, now works as a Senior Developer Advocate & International Keynote Speaker.

She was very friendly when I spoke to her, and I’ve been following her on Twitter ever since, where she does a great job of supporting fellow programmers/coders, particularly those early on in their career. by @hand_portraits

Niall McDiarmid, Photographer
In early 2018 I met up with Niall (@niallmcdiarmid ) in the Southbank Centre, London. He’s one of my favourite photographers and, thanks to his unique combinations of colour, light & shadow, manages to pull off the skill of having an instantly-recognisable style (no mean feat in an age of billions of new photos created every day). Whether it’s one of his beautiful street portraits, or a still life of his breakfast table, you can always tell it’s a McDiarmid.

As colour is such an important part of his work, I was glad we were able to find an interestingly-illuminated spot for this photograph. If you’ve not met Niall, he’s one of the friendliest people in the photography world, and generous with his time, so was a good subject!

I recommend you seek out his work, either on his website or by buying one of his books, such as this year’s ‘Southwestern’ or ‘Town to Town’. These are sold out on his site, but you may be fortunate in finding them elsewhere.

See more of my 'Hands Down' portraits at the link in Bio by @hand_portraits