<\/p>\n
Print Matters is a new project that uses iconic photography to raise money for a mental health charity.<\/p>\n
Since early 1980s photographer Lawrence Watson has captured the biggest stars of the music world with his cameras.<\/a> He initially served an apprenticeship in a darkroom in Old Street and then moved on to the darkroom at the now defunct TV franchise London Weekend Television (LWT). He mixed his work at LWT with personal work (often gigs) and, with access to a working darkroom, printed up his projects in between churning out publicity prints for \u2018cheesy\u2019 1980s TV shows. His big break came with getting a concert shot of Southern Death Cult<\/strong> (who would later become The Cult) into the New Musical Express (NME).<\/p>\n This triggered the NME to begin commissioning him and the music paper soon sent Watson to the US to document the rising stars of hip hop,<\/strong> including Run DMC and Public Enemy. Since that early 1980s work he has spent over 40 years shooting portraits of musicians, album covers, gigs and creative projects. This has included photographing many iconic music stars, including David Bowie, Paul McCartney,<\/strong> Oasis,<\/a> The Smiths, New Order, Paul Weller, Snoop Dogg, Issac Hayes and Grace Jones.<\/p>\n But, sadly, Watson\u2019s latest project was borne out of tragedy \u2013 the death of his son Travis, who had been battling with mental health issues.<\/strong> What is now called Print Matters was only conceived as an idea in late November 2024, but was up and running by April 2025.<\/p>\n Watson reveals, \u2018I was intending to do something. My son suffered from mental health\u2026 I wish we could change the words mental health to something like mindful health, because it is. Youngsters and all sorts of people who suffer from it \u2013 it is mindful of thoughts that they just can\u2019t stop things pinging round their heads, and Travis suffered with that. I wanted to do something at the time and had these big grand plans, but my world turned upside down<\/strong> [when he died] and I just went into grief.\u2019<\/p>\n He continues, \u2018Dave Hill has got a lovely gallery down on Ladbroke Grove. He\u2019d heard that I wanted to do something. It was just finding a charity that gives something back and helps youngsters \u2013 the highest suicide rate is for 15- to 25-year-old men. The statistics are scary for the young men.<\/strong> It happens to women as well, but it seems to be stacked towards young men who don\u2019t get through that period. So, it came about through trying to put something back through my work.\u2019<\/p>\n The gallery owner David Hill had strong ties to both the camera and music industries, having previously sold rare collectable cameras and run the record label Nuphonic, before opening his London photo gallery<\/a> in 2015. Hill already knew Lawrence Watson\u2019s music photography and Watson would often visit private views at the David Hill Gallery.<\/p>\n Hill explains, \u2018I know Lawrence\u2019s tragic story with one of his sons. So, I said to Lawrence a little while ago, \u201cLook, you\u2019ve got this incredible archive\u2026 but if someone goes on your website and sees it, it says \u201cnot available for sale\u201d, so you\u2019re not monetising that and you\u2019re not getting anything in. I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s going to be too much of a mountain for you to climb on your own?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n He adds, \u2018To do something like that is a major project and so I said [to Lawrence], \u201cI\u2019ve got the infrastructure here\u2026 we order prints all the time, we work with printers, we pack prints up and ship them out \u2013 that\u2019s what we do as a gallery. We can look after that, we can get them up on the site and we can do that heavy lifting for you \u2013 what do you think? The work is fantastic and it should be out there.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Hill spoke to his arts PR friend Lisa Baker and they proposed to Lawrence Watson that a percentage of print sales (20%) could go to a mental health charity. Watson recalls, \u2018Dave [Hill] was trying to get a few other photographers as well, so it wasn\u2019t just a music [photography] thing. I\u2019d stressed that I wanted to do something for mental health and Dave did a lot of the research on finding a charity that we could work with. We found one [Rethink Mental Illness<\/a>] that understood what we were doing and were really up for it.\u2019<\/p>\n The resulting website is www.printmatters.uk and it currently features selected work by Lawrence Watson (some previously unseen), images by the famous Andy Warhol acolyte Billy Name and the photographer Peter Angelo Simon\u2019s iconic photographs of boxer Muhammad Ali in training<\/strong> for the legendary 1975 \u2018Rumble in the Jungle\u2019 fight with George Foreman. In addition, the archive of the music photographer David Corio \u2013 probably best known for his incredible archive of black musicians, including Bob Marley, Ray Charles and Miles Davis<\/strong> \u2013 is set to be added this autumn, with plans for more photographers\u2019 work to be included in the future.<\/p>\n The Print Matters project produces limited edition, exhibition-grade photographic prints<\/a> and fine art posters, which are often signed by the photographers. David Hill explains, \u2018There\u2019s a newish lab that I work with a great deal and they\u2019re fantastic \u2013 they are [also] called Print Matters. One of the points of difference we wanted to make in presenting the work for the Print Matters project is to apply rigorous gallery standards<\/strong> to the work and the way it\u2019s presented.\u2019 Thus, the lab Print Matters has produced high quality C-type chromogenic prints for the colour images and silver gelatin prints on Ilford<\/a> Multigrade for the monochrome work.<\/p>\n Hill adds, \u2018Everything is signed properly. If you go onto the Print Matters site you\u2019ll see proper, gallery cataloguing details. We try to put the background in. I\u2019ll generally have a caption from the photographer relating to each shot. It makes an amazing difference; it increases the connection that it generates between the viewer and the work.\u2019<\/p>\n In fact, the background to some of Lawrence Watson\u2019s shoots are fascinating. He recalls, \u2018There was a lady called Shane Chapman, who worked in the press office at LWT and later became the wife of Mick Talbot of The Style Council. She\u2019d seen me pogoing in the darkroom to The Jam<\/strong>, The Clash and my old reggae stuff. She said to me, \u201cMick [Talbot] and Paul [Weller] are doing a recording at Pinewood, a couple of numbers. Do you want me to see if you can come along and take some pictures?\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n He adds, \u2018I went along with one little camera and one lens and then spent the whole weekend hand printing loads of lovely bromide prints. Then I took the box along to Solid Bond, Paul Weller\u2019s old office in Marble Arch. He looked through them and suddenly picked up three prints and scribbled on the bottom \u201cfront cover, back cover, inside\u201d. I walked out of Solid Bond with the cover of The Style Council album, Confessions of a Pop Group.<\/strong> I went home on a cloud. From that day on I\u2019ve worked with Paul on and off \u2013 from Wildwood to Stanley Road and various other record sleeves. I count him as a very good friend, so I\u2019ve been very fortunate.\u2019<\/p>\n Of a one-off shoot with the David Bowie in Scotland, Watson reveals, \u2018It was on a video shoot with the guitarist Adrian Belew \u2013 the one Bowie pinched from Frank Zappa \u2013 up in Edinburgh. The song was Pretty Pink Rose and Bowie was helping him out. It was the early days of MTV and if Bowie featured in the video it would get a lot more plays. It was just before lunch and I said, \u201cLook. That set-up is really lovely David, can I rattle off a roll on the Hasselblad<\/a>?\u201d He said, \u201cOf course, Lawrence, that\u2019s no problem.\u201d <\/p>\n Bowie was charming and I shot off a roll of film<\/a> in a darkened corner. I got to spend my day with Bowie; he was a lovely man. He respected the image, so he wanted to get that partnership. As a photographer it becomes sort of an alliance \u2013 you\u2019re both striving to get something strong and a great image, so we worked together.\u2019<\/p>\n To choose which images would be offered as exhibition-grade prints and fine art posters didn\u2019t prove too onerous a task for Watson. He recalls, \u2018David Hill, with his experience of running a gallery, helped and we tried to revisit some of the contact sheets and find some new images \u2013 some of the Bowie shots, some of the Madness ones, some Pogues stuff that I hadn\u2019t been seen before. It was good for me to revisit those. There\u2019s plenty more to dig out. I think the edit will be ongoing, because it was only a few months ago that we started organising the whole thing\u2026 so we\u2019ve done it quite quickly.\u2019<\/p>\n He adds, \u2018We\u2019ve done a nice thing with affordable posters. The Liam Gallagher Union Jack shots are up there for a reasonable \u00a385<\/strong> and we\u2019re getting a nice, big-sized poster on good, heavy weight paper. Then we have some nice 20\u00d716 [inch] bromides and C-types for the black and white<\/a> and colour images in limited editions of 25. I like good quality bromides and prints. The print quality has got to be good.\u2019<\/p>\n One thing that seems clear from talking to Lawrence Watson is that, despite the tragedy of losing a son, the Print Matters project has been something that has helped to ignite a fresh spark in his career. He admits, \u2018Shooting fell off for a little while after Travis [died], but in the last year or two I\u2019m starting to get back to shooting. I\u2019ve kept the film cameras<\/a> \u2013 the two and a quarter Hasselblads and I\u2019ve got the Hasselblad panoramic X-Pan. I\u2019ve kept my old Nikons and I\u2019ve got a modern Nikon digital; I put the old prime lenses on it, but it\u2019s getting trickier as my focusing is slowing down; I\u2019m not as quick as I was.\u2019<\/p>\n Watson reveals that he has plans to use some of his Britpop archive for a possible exhibition in Japan and is looking to \u2018keep feeding into\u2019 the prints and posters that will be offered on the Print Matters website. He also notes, \u2018It\u2019s been good to let somebody else go into my archive, because it was just sitting there in the loft gathering dust.\u2019 What\u2019s clear is that, far from gathering dust, the iconic photography of Lawrence Watson is now actively helping to improve the lives of those affected by mental health.<\/strong><\/p>\nTragic loss<\/h3>\n
Into the archive<\/h3>\n
Charity percentage<\/h3>\n
Celebrity stories<\/h3>\n
One camera one lens<\/h3>\n
Which celebrity works<\/h3>\n
Fresh spark<\/h3>\n
Helping mindful health <\/h3>\n