Ewen Spencer

Ewen Spencer (born 1971) is a British photographer and documentary filmmaker based in Brighton, England. His photography is primarily of youth and subcultures.
He began his career working for style, music and culture magazines The Face and Sleazenation and has since transplanted himself into groups of young people and musicians to form numerous personal projects, as well as making films for Massive Attack and The Streets and undertaking commercial work. His photography series have included Wag Lad, Three's a Crowd and Open Mic. He self-published a number of photobooks before partnering with Olivia Gideon-Thomson of We Folk to publish as SEE-W.

Spencer studied Editorial Photography under photographers Paul Reas and Mark Power at the School of Art and Design at the University of Brighton. He graduated in 1997.

In 1999 he worked photographing nightlife, such as the UK garage scene, for fashion and lifestyle magazine Sleazenation.

Between 2001 and 2005 Spencer photographed the American rock band The White Stripes. Initially for the NME he photographed shows from their first UK tour onwards, including candid backstage photographs. In 2010 he self-published Three's a Crowd, documenting the early stages of the band's rise to popularity.

In 2002 photographer Martin Parr tipped Spencer as the most promising newcomer of that year.

England's Dreaming show opening, White Cloth Gallery, Leeds, UK

Spencer with Mike Skinner at 'Brandy & Coke' opening, Create Space, Brighton, UK

Spencer is also a noted photographer of London's grime music scene, for which he has received widespread acclaim and which resulted in his book Open Mic, which was awarded a Yellow Pencil certificate for photographic publishing by D&AD in 2005. Martin Parr, in his introduction to Open Mic said:

Ewen Spencer has already established his reputation, in recent years, as a photographer of much talent with his work on youth culture, but now he turns his attention to the 'grime' music scene in London. ... This is where Spencer's quality as a photographer really begins to work. He has thrown himself into this whole scene with such enthusiasm and dedication that he has won over the confidence of the key players on the grime circuit. This demonstrates how the potential magic of contemporary photography begins to operate. Because Spencer's photography is so compelling, the viewer begins to understand what attracted him in the first place. ... This scene is about energy.. ... Ewen Spencer's photographs are also about energy, making visual sense of the wonderful anarchy of grime. Spencer brings the same raw passion to his photographs; I think those who view them benefit from this engagement.

Alice Vincent writing for the Huffington Post in 2012 said "it is his photography from the front line of genuine youth culture that are the most striking. The rituals of sex and socialising are prominent, with Spencer's images seeming to be captured by an invisible voyeur."

In 2013 GOST published Spencer's book of photographs of the UK garage scene, UKG. Writing in The Guardian, Mike Skinner said of UKG that:

Ewen's photographs start when the scene was moving at its fastest, and go right up to Moving Too Fast. The first thing I wondered when I saw them was how he didn't get beaten up for snapping such intimate moments of some pretty certified-looking badmen. But my second, more lasting impression was how much more rich in detail they were than my fading typecast memory. ... But the important and exciting thing about Ewen's photos are that they take you back to the real thing...

His photography has featured in The Guardian and he has worked for the NME, The Face, Nike, Sony, Vodafone and Channel 4 (photographing on the set of E4's series, Skins). He took the inner liner photographs for the album Original Pirate Material by The Streets.

Spencer is also a documentary short film director. His Brandy & Coke (2014), about the UK garage scene, was broadcast on Channel 4 in 2014 as part of the first of their Music Nation music documentary series with Dazed. Sam Richards, writing in The Guardian in 2014, called it "excellent". Open Mic (2014), about grime music, was broadcast in the second series. Ellen E. Jones, writing in The Independent in 2014, said "There are enough ideas in ‘Open Mic’, the opening film from Ewen Spencer, to justify a whole series of films on grime music alone." In 2015 Spencer was commissioned by i-D to make a four-part series for Channel 4, Street, Sound and Style, describing how music and street style subcultures have changed the face of British pop culture.

Publications by Spencer

The cover of Open Mic

The cover of Three's a Crowd Vol.1

The cover of Three's a Crowd Vol.2

• Open Mic. Self-published, 2005. ISBN 0-9550840-0-8. Photographs of young people involved in the Grime music scene in London. Introductions by Martin Parr and Mike Skinner.
• Three's a Crowd Vol. 1. Self-published, 2010. Edition of 500 copies. Photographs of The White Stripes.
• Three's a Crowd Vol. 2. Self-published, 2011. ISBN 978-0-955084-02-7. Photographs of The White Stripes.
• Guapamente (Issue 1). Self-published, 2013. ISBN 978-0-955084-01-0. Photographs of young people in Naples, Italy. Edition of 300 copies.
• UKG. London: GOST, 2013. ISBN 978-0-957427-25-9. Photographs of people involved in the UK garage music scene. Edition of 1,000 copies. With an essay by Jason Evans, "Meanwhile, on the Other Side of Town".
• Guapamente (Issue 2). Self-published, 2014. ISBN 978-0-955084-02-7. Photographs of young people in Marseille, France. Edition of 300 copies.
• Guapamente (Issue 3). Self-published, 2014. ISBN 978-0-955084-03-4. Photographs of young people in Miami, FL. Edition of 300 copies.
• Open Mic Vol.2. Brighton: See-W, 2014. Edition of 500 copies. Additional photographs from his Open Mic series plus interviews made for the film Open Mic (2014) with DJ Slimzee, Dizzee Rascal, Kano, Lethal B, Newham Generals, Jammer, JME, Ratty (Lord Of The Mics) and Logan Sama.
• Guapamente (Issue 4). Brighton: See-W, 2015. ISBN 978-0-9550840-6-5. Photographs of roller skaters in London. Edition of 300 copies.

Publications with contributions by Spencer

• HOST Portfolio, 8 Magazine, Issue 24: Resistance, Foto8, 2008.

• "Back to the bogle: the UK garage scene – in pictures". The Guardian. 14 November 2013. Retrieved 16 November 2013. 

• Brandy & Coke, 2013. 8 m short. Directed by Ewen Spencer, produced by Denna Cartamkhoob, for Dazed
• Brandy & Coke, 2014. 22 m short. Directed by Ewen Spencer, produced by Denna Cartamkhoob and Adam Farley
• Open Mic, 2014. 23 m short. Directed by Ewen Spencer. Commissioned by Channel 4 as part of the Music Nation series.
• Jam and Cheese, 2015. 7 m short. Directed by Ewen Spencer. Commissioned by Dazed.
• Street, Sound and Style, 2015. Four episodes, each 23 m short. Directed by Ewen Spencer, produced by Oz Thakkar. Commissioned by i-D.

• Teenagers, Courtyard Arts Centre, Hereford, 2001
• Teenagers, Sketch, London, 2003
• Open Mic, Proud Galleries, London, 2005
• Open Mic, AG925 Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden, 2005
• Open Mic, City University, London, 2006
• Dream On (10 Years of British Youth Culture), Lazarides Gallery, London, 2006
• Wag Lad, KK Outlet, London, 2009
• Three's a Crowd, KK Outlet, London, 2011
• Teenagers, Third Floor Gallery, Cardiff, 2012.
• Teenagers, Repositioned Gallery, Glasgow, 2012
• England’s Dreaming, White Cloth Gallery, Leeds, 2012
• Brandy & Coke, Create Studios, Brighton, 2013.
• UKG and screenings of Open Mic and Brandy & Coke, Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam, 2014.

• ""Teenagers" by Ewen Spencer". Third Floor Gallery. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2015. 
• "Ewen Spencer - Brandy & Coke". Create Studios. Retrieved 27 July 2015. 
• "Ewen Spencer on the UKG scene". Wieden+Kennedy. 5 November 2014. Retrieved 13 November 2014. 

• Jam London - Tokyo, Barbican Centre, London, 2000
• Exposure, Hereford Photography Festival, 2001
• Jam London - Tokyo, Tokyo Opera House Gallery, Japan 2001
• Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 2004
• Culture Bound, East Wing Collection VII, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2005-2007
• Teen City, Musee D'Elysee, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2008
• Facing Youth, The Museum de Imagem (as part of Encontras de Imagem festival), Braga, Portugal, 2012
• We Want More: Image-Making and Music in the 21st Century, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 17 July – 20 September 2015. With Roger Ballen, Pep Bonet, Deirdre O'Callaghan, Daniel Cohen, Jason Evans, Ryan Enn Hughes, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Gareth McConnell, Ryan McGinley, James Mollison, Lorena Turner and Dan Wilton.

• Anya, Lawrence. "Ewen Spencer's Open Mic series beautifully captures the UK hip-hop scene". It's Nice That. 
• "We Want More: Image-Making and Music in the 21st Century". The Photographers' Gallery. Retrieved 24 July 2015.