mark leaver Archives

October 19, 2014October 20, 2014

MORE PHOTOS in MARK LEAVER’S FACIAL TATTOO PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT

Mark Leaver‘s photography project has been created to show the beauty of facial tattoos and dispel some of the myths surrounding them. We featured some of his photos in The Identity Issue, and have continually followed this stunning facial tattoo project on our blog. Check out previous posts here: MARK LEAVER’S FACIAL TATTOO PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT and EXCLUSIVE NEW IMAGES IN MARK LEAVER’S FACIAL TATTOO PROJECT.

He recently contacted us to share more unpublished images with us, and I am delighted to share them with you in this blog post.

Kirsty Wood – 23 – Tattoo artist

Trevin Goodbush – 36 – Works at Lush!

Deefa De’ville – 43 – retired body piercer and healing specialist

Michael Kench – 21 – Tattoo artist

Robert Williamson – 29 – tattoo artist

Emma Gerrard – 27 – Tattoo artist and in a band

We also caught up with photographer Mark to find out how he feels about the project…

How you found your latest subjects? I recently graduated from Bournemouth and have now moved back to London. Before I left the south coast I wanted to make sure that I managed to take a few more portraits while I was still local. This particular group of people are all Dorset based, and are all people who I have either met over the course of my three years in the area or have been put in contact with through friends.

Dorset, has a massive and tight knit tattoo community. I’ve met and got to know most of the people in Dorset with facial tattooing through doing this project, there’s still a couple though I can think of though who I’d like to go back and photograph for the project.

How is the project progressing? The project’s coming on really nicely Thanks. It seems weird that it started off as a self-set university brief but now is something that I do in my spare time for leisure. I have a full time job at the moment, un-related to photography, so it’s nice on days off to be able to go and meet interesting new people and carry on with my own creative work. Just last week I met and photographed Grace Neutral, then a few days later Curly Moore! (photographs have not been released yet) Both big well-known names in the industry, both of whom are really great additions to the project for their own reasons.

Are you near finishing or is it a never-ending project? Because of the way that I’m photographing, the project doesn’t really have an obvious finish point. It’s not a traditionally shot documentary story but rather a typographic series showing people with facial tattooing. So the project finishes either when I’ve photographed every one with facial tattooing (not possible) or when I feel I’ve made a representative and differential sample of people with facial tattoos. This includes, people of all ages, genders and ethnicities. For the subject of facial tattooing you also look into the different types of facial tattoos, this includes cosmetic tattooing, aesthetic tattooing and many more which are explored through the project.

Saying that, the project has come a long way and is becoming a substantial body of work. There’s still a few more people I will be looking to photograph for this chapter. Then in the next few years I’ll be looking to make a book of the portraits with text on each sitter.

We look forward to the book, and applaud Mark for his positive contribution to the tattoo world. His work can be viewed at, mdleaver.com

June 6, 2014June 7, 2014

Exclusive new images in Mark Leaver’s facial tattoo project

Facial tattoos are bold and unflinching, they cannot be hidden – perhaps this is why they still sometimes provoke fear and prejudice. Mark Leaver’s photographic project tackles this issue and tries to dispel some of the myths that exist about this niche within a subculture.

These are two brand-new, unseen portraits in Mark Leaver’s beautiful (and much talked about) series of portrait photographs. (previously blogged about here, and also featured in The Identity Issue of Things&Ink). This time Mark photographs a couple of our friends, Duncan X and Blue from Into You, London.

Duncan X, 48 years old, Tattoo Artist

Duncan was 21 when he got his first tattoo. Duncan was in a band for 7 years until he began working at Into You as a receptionist at 30 years old. He did an apprenticeship in Soho with Dennis Cockell. Duncan’s first facial tattoo was by Curley Moore (when Curly worked at Into You). Duncan doesn’t intend on getting any more facial work.

Blue, 50 years old, office manager at Into You, London

Blue was 18 when she started getting tattooed and it wasn’t until her mid 30s that she decided to move to her face. For her, the hands and neck were a bigger deal to get tattooed than her face. Blue has been at Into You for 20 years and she wants more facial work, but not for a while – maybe at 70!

A word from the photographer Mark:

It seems oddly timed that the project has had so much publicity and attention right after I’ve graduated from university! To get the series published by the Daily Mail is an amazing (and unexpected) progression of the project. This marks a new audience which is amazing for much a niche subject – before the series was only really viewed by people from the tattoo community, for it to be in a tabloid paper is incredible.

The project is nowhere near over, I’m still shooting. I shot these portraits last week of Duncan and Blue. And I actually shot two more today and will be doing two more tomorrow. There’s still a few big names/characters I’d like to have in the project before I put it to rest.

We will continue to keep you updated on Mark Leaver’s progression with this project. His work can be viewed at www.mdleaver.com

February 26, 2014February 26, 2014

Mark Leaver’s facial tattoo photography project

Mark Leaver is a third year student studying commercial photography at the Arts University Bournemouth. Portraits are his thing. And his photography project has been created to show the beauty of facial tattoos and dispel some of the myths surrounding them.

“Facial tattoos have a lot of taboos around them, due to their confrontational nature,” says Mark Leaver on why he started this project. “Unfortunately none of these views are positive, facial tattoos are associated with suicide rates, unemployment, depression and anti-social behaviour. And I can happily report that’s all dated buillshit”.

“Tattoos have recently become incredibly popular and are more accepted by society than ever before. There are many reasons for this, one being their endorsement through celebrity culture. There are countless people with tattooed sleeves and other bits and pieces but that was too broad and mainstream to base a project around. What makes facial tattoos so distinctive is that they are still confrontational, there’s no hiding them. There are only a select few people who make that kind of commitment and it was those people that I wanted to meet and photograph,” says Mark Leaver, about his project.

Mark interviewed each of the subjects of this portrait photographs, to find out a little more about them. These interviews have not yet been published.

“I feel that with documentary work it’s an oversight not to talk to the people being photographed, especially if they are posed portraits,” says Mark. “Candid work isn’t my thing. I try to meet people and set up a portrait in a way that naturally and authentically reveals the person’s character. I prefer the shoots where I get to know the subject a bit better because everyone has interesting stories and backgrounds. Obviously, there are some things that are impossible to communicate with an image, so the text adds to the portrait without changing it. During Touka Voodoo’s interview he told me he had a sex change operation to become a man and that the tattooing on his face, which he did in the mirror himself, represented both his masculinity and femininity.”

A full interview with Mark, can be viewed at Huck magazine. And his work can viewed on his website, www.mdleaver.com.

Also look out for issue #7 of Things&Ink, which will feature brand new portraits and accompanying interviews from this project.

All photographs by Mark Leaver, www.mdleaver.com, www.facebook.com/mdleaverphotography