"I generally use the SONY AR7 IV & Leica Q2, and on occasion the Fujifilm GFX 50S, but I’ve also used the Leica V-Lux and the M10-R models. In the past, I shot with a Canon 5D Mark IV. I also take a large amount of photos on my iPhone, if that’s all I have with me at the time."
Julian, 2022
As I previously mentioned before, Julian became a photographer quite by accident. After a photo session with Timothy White, he sent Julian some proofs. Julian fooled around with them with his Photoshop as a joke but Timothy was impressed and encouraged him to take please hold a photo exhibition: Timeless debuted in New York City on September 16, 2010. Since then, Julian has taken on more photography projects and held more exhibits.
2010 - Timeless
2012 - Alone
2013 - Everything Changes
2014 - Charlene Wittstock
2015 - Horizon
2016 - Cycle
2017 - Uplift
2018 - Rock in Las Vegas (with Nikki Sixx and Neil Preston)
2021 - Vision
Obviously there's been more exhibitions, including as a group and festivals (Art Basel in Miami, Florida). You can check them out in full detail on Julian's website Julian Lennon Photography (https://julianlennon-photography.com/). Julian has traveled almost everywhere, mostly in part of his White Feather Foundation for environmental purposes, including Cuba, Ethiopia, Kenya, China, and more. Somewhere down the future, I do intend to focus on each exhibition for Julian to talk about; this chapter post is more about photography in general.
"I don’t think you can have a favorite. I think that’s almost an impossible question to answer because there’s certain beauty and culture and history within a landscape just as much as a face. A face can be war torn and ragged and you can see their love and their life in their eyes; as you can with the landscape, with what’s happened to the world that we live in. So I think they are equally as important."
Julian, 2016
“I aim to grant the viewer intimate access to the lives and locations of my subjects, as well as insight into my own personal journey. In a city as vibrant and diverse as Miami, I invite the residents to draw a relationship to their own lives in these images, and to unite us through empathy in the lives of others.”
Julian, 2021
Julian showing his brother Sean how to work a Polaroid camera in Palm Beach, April of 1979
It all started when John gave Julian a camera as a gift in 1974. Thirty-Six years later, Julian revealed a photography career path that surprised himself.
"I always enjoyed taking pictures, even as a young boy with my first Polaroid SX-70, which my dad bought for me when I was about 10 years old. I still have that camera. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say photography has become an obsession over time, but it’s definitely a passion. Today it’s just more about developing my style further, sharing the best of what I capture, and above all else, not wasting the moment."
Julian, 2022
"Likely, the same way most people do…by being given a camera as a present, in one’s youth. I don’t necessarily remember my first, though the most important one was a Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera, which I still have to this day."
Julian, 2021
"Certain people have affected my progress and creativity in different mediums. For instance, Timothy White, a dear friend and a famous celebrity photographer, urged me to consider photography, which gave me a completely new lease of life and a new outlet."
Julian, 2022
“I have always felt that I have observed life in a different way to others. Music has always been one creative outlet for me, but now I’m happy to add another one too, that being photography.”
Julian, 2016
"I believe most true artists have a unique trait/quality about them, something that distinguishes themselves from others…and I think that shows. It’s not tangible as such…it’s a look/feel/sound…"
Julian, 2021
"I believe it’s a sense that you can relate to it…possibly in a number of ways…a time, a place, a string of one’s memory."
Julian, 2021
“My landscapes don’t play any role as such. They merely participate in conveying the truth of what I see before me. They tell the story of a time and a place, to be shared with whomever wishes to learn from that image. I never wish to be analytical about the work that I do, in whatever medium. I always try to let the work speak for itself. I’m just the middleman. The messenger, if you will.”
Julian, 2015
"I have always felt that I observed life in a different way than others, so I’m thankful that photography has given me an outlet to express that. Landscapes are my favourite thing to capture and Ansel Adams is someone I admire in that respect. Where people and fly-on-the-wall glimpses of life are concerned, I’m inspired by Mick Rock, Henry Diltz and my dear friend and mentor, Timothy White. I’m not sure how much of my visual style is reflected in filmmaking—that’s probably a better question for the audience."
Julian, 2020
"I grew up in the countryside and have a great love for the outdoors, a love of which has only intensified over the years, as a philanthropist. To see nature in such peril due to climate change gives me a greater sense of urgency to capture its beauty and wonder in the here and now. My charity, The White Feather Foundation, works on various humanitarian and conservation projects worldwide. Many of my journeys on behalf of the charity have been to very remote, picturesque places with people from vastly diverse cultures and backgrounds. I consider it a great privilege to witness—and be allowed to capture moments from—life being lived in a way opposite from our own, and to be able to share those images, with people who either cannot afford to travel for themselves, or those with disabilities that prevent them from traveling."
Julian, 2022
"Each image depends upon its circumstance, it really is as simple as that. If a landscape is rich in color, I may preserve that through my lens. However, in some cases, the subject—whether it be a person or an object or a place—can benefit from desaturated hues to enhance the actual essence of what is being conveyed, which sometimes also depends on how I am feeling, in that moment. It is often a decision I make during the editing process."
Julian, 2022
"I do enjoy being behind the camera, far more than in front of it! Observing life as I see it from my perspective. There’s a comfort in not being the focus, but being the one to put everything into focus."
Julian, 2022
“There has to be an attraction to the image, a visual aesthetic that sets it apart. There has to be a mutual understanding between what the subject is conveying and what the viewer is seeing. A connection, if you will, that makes it real, and present in that moment. Perhaps most important, there has to be heart. An emotion, a feeling, that’s sparked by the intimacy of whatever moment is revealed."
Julian, 2022
"Everything I've ever done has been studied, but organically. It's that traditional male stubbornness that still exists within me, that refuses to read a manual. I think the only way for me to understand or grasps things properly, is by going through whatever process it is to make my own mistakes, to learn from that. I can't do that by reading a book. It doesn't teach me the same things. It can guide me a little bit, but it certainly won't give me the experience I need to move forward properly."
Julian, 2015
“I know how it feels to have your privacy invaded by photographers, whether it is in work mode or privately. So I have always been sensitive to that. I’m a fly on the wall. Nothing is staged. I don’t want to be in the subject’s way.”
Julian, 2021
"I guess I find that color sometimes is more distracting. I find black & white draws you in with a more empathetic view to the world. It’s more textured to me, there’s more depth to it to me, it’s more emotive to me. I actually only have a number of photographs from other artists in my home and 90% of them are all black & white. It’s just what draws me in, more than a color picture. So for me, I feel that that’s what translates what I’m seeing better for the viewer."
Julian, 2016
"My interests as an artist have always been not only in audio, but visual art as well. I just never really had the opportunity to go there before. Ever since sort of becoming an independent artist 20 years ago, and just doing my own thing, I was able to broaden out with my creative ideas.”
Julian, 2021
"Obviously, with this kind of art — I always felt I had a certain eye for things. I used to actually make a lot of mini films and documentaries years ago. I had been involved with visual ideas and projects, but I really fell in love with it all. No. 1, there was no association with Dad or The Beatles. Finally, I was really being judged on my own work on this regard. The response I got was staggering. I was expecting to be crucified, I kid you not. I had some incredible reviews, and I’ve really followed it because it really is very unique. From one moment to the next, you can literally do many things. You can get on a plane and get off a plane and you can shoot an entirely new exhibition that is unique and beautiful. You can move that into the work with The White Feather Foundation. We can go to places to where we are helping people and meet them and try to learn what is going on. I can capture those moments as an individual, because it is just me and the camera and the situations that I find myself in. The most important part of that issue, to me, is being a fly on the wall and keeping out of everybody’s way. I am not one of those photographers that gets in your face, and I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want you to even see me, if I can help it. That is how I tend to get what I feel are some of my better shots. I am off to the side, and I will make it quick and painless, but you won’t even know I got the shot. I’ve fallen in love with being a true photographer. I would lean to more of being a visual artist than a photographer. I am not technically adept to the inner workings of a camera, but I’ve got the basics. It is the post work where I feel I draw the real emotion out of any pictures that I take. It is not a great deal of work. I don’t take every photo and put it into PhotoShop and reshape it. I will play with the images and try to bring the best out of them, but I am certainly not going to remove your double chin — unless you really want me to, but that will cost you extra, of course!"
Julian, 2016
"Even between albums, I was working on other projects with different people and writing and singing, just not in front of the camera — not in the limelight. The limelight is not particularly where I like to be. I’d rather be behind the camera any day. That’s my happy place, where I can breathe and not feel like a performing monkey.”
Julian, 2022
Differences between music and photography:
"Well, both are about capturing a moment, an essence, a time and a place in many ways… I prefer to see the similarities than the difference… It’s all about embracing and sharing various art forms."
Julian, 2021
"Sure, there are some parallels in the creative process. Finding the right melody could be compared to capturing just the right moment in a photograph, just as scripting the perfect lyric could be likened to framing an image in the most poetic way possible. Whatever medium I’m working within, it’s all about turning the energy I put into the art into the best possible outcome."
Julian, 2022
"I still love doing music, but there was so much pressure in doing music, and so many comparisons with Dad and the Beatles and everybody else. A lot of the media just didn't give me a break regardless of how good or bad the work was. They just slated or ignored it. At least with photography it has its own voice. It's something without question I've fallen in love with, completely and utterly fallen in love with."
Julian, 2015
"You know, I never really considered myself a photographer and I still don’t really. I use the apparatus to capture an image. But let me tell you, I couldn’t tell you what goes on inside of those bloody machines. It’s the same with music for me. I play music by ear and I have no technical ability but I go with what I feel and what makes sense to me, organically and naturally. So the same thing happens with me with the camera."
Julian, 2016
"That's why I've fallen in love with photography, because there is no relationship to Dad or to The Beatles in that regard. I've had phenomenal response and reviews, and I'm doing projects all over the world. As much as I love music, in my mind, photography is what makes me the happiest - that's for sure."
Julian, 2013
