'We are living in dangerously weird times now... Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused'- Hunter.S.Thompson



'Because the only ones for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centrelight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!' - Jack Kerouac


The last twenty-four hours was a blur. There is an ethereal atmosphere that surrounds the Last Time you do something. The last time I hear the buskers acoustics echo through the tube station. The last time I share a jug of Snake Bite, also known as the Poor Man’s Black Velvet. The last time I walk down Old Street at 4am when the streets are lined with homeless people and exploding rubbish bins. The rubbish that I once loathed had looked like poetry that last morning.
Goodbyes are asphyxiating. The first goodbye was that morning, on the rooftop. It was the first clear day that London had birthed in weeks. The air was fresh and the streets were fuzzy from the glare. I gazed over East London’s imperfections, like a mother over her first-born. This place had ushered me into my eighteenth year, showed me the ropes and now I had to cut them loose.
I was fresh out of high school and I had fallen in love with the first city I met... With all its charlatans and drudgery it was a beautiful world to which no one but we had keys.
Behind the scenes of Academy for Men magazine shoot for Winter 2010 issue, out soon. See previous issues here.
Eagle feathers, leather boots, ponchos, fur, swaggering attitudes and an endless yarn of colored wool were the tricks of our trade and Ben with his magic wand, that, with a single punch of the finger captured the essence of a moment. One blinding flash and the satisfying crunch of a camera shutter and we were imprisoned in his memory card. Within that card lies a myriad of impressions bound only by your imagination; a feeling, a journey, a story, another world that once existed in the minds eye of a single person and has now been brought to life. There is nothing more rousing than sea air to get the creative blood cursing through your veins again. We fled to the ocean. In the trustful arms of Mother Nature and the artists behind Academy for Men magazine, dreams were brought into fruition.
