Darran Rees

Darran Rees, a mural painter who turned to photography, launched his career with a disaster. The government of the United Kingdom hired him to shoot a series of landscape billboards set in a town affected by a disastrous chemical spill. His portraits of the land garnered him national attention, earning Rees his first car commission, from Mercedes. At the time, the portentous event seemed like a fluke. “I had never shot a car before in my life,” Rees says. “But the art director had seen my portraits. He said to me, ‘These are front-on shots of cars in landscapes, but I want to give the cars personality and I want you to do it because I’ve seen your portraits.’” The art director showed good judgment; his then-unknown quantity was recently named one of the 200 Best Ad Photographers Worldwide by Lurzer’s Archive.
Written by T.K. Dalton
Edited by Jesi Khadivi and Zack Seckler
Via Fstop