Brian Aris

B R I A N A R I S, who now lives on the South Coast, started out his photographic career as a photojournalist during the 1960s-1970s His work for a London Agency took him on a series of frontline assignments around the world – covering civil unrest and riots at the start of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the plight of Palestinian children in Jordan, the Civil War in Lebanon, famine in Africa and the war in Vietnam, where he worked until the final days of the conflict in Saigon.

In the late 1970s Aris changed direction and opened a studio in London where he started photographing w pop and rock including The Jam, The Clash, The Boomtown Rats, Roxy Music and The Police concentrating on the music industry which was exploding in Britain.

During the next two decades he covered every aspect of the music scene from punk rock, glam’ rock and straight rock ‘n’ roll with the Rolling Stones right through to the emergence of the boy bands and then “girl power” that arrived with The Spice Girls. While also having become friends with Bob Geldof and Aris was then brought in to take the exclusive official pictures of the all-superstar Band Aid line-up organised by Bob, as they got together to record the fund-raising hit single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” helping victims of the Ethiopian famine.