Chips & Chops - Kane Layland
Quintessentially British from the title to the very last page, Chips & Chops is an raw an honest look into our little subculture mainly shot in the South East of England.
The gentleman behind it is Kane Layland - DicE contributor, recent first time father and just all round safe bloke. Usually you see his work in major campaigns for big brands and on the covers of fine publications but his fascination for old 2 wheelers has lead him to create this wonderful book.
DicE: Firstly mate, congratulations on your the book. How has the process been from the initial idea to having it in your hands?
Kane: Thank you mate! Its been wild, I grossly underestimated the amount of time and work that goes into making something like this, and I didn't want to short change it so spent the time to make it right. I thought the hard bit would be taking the images, but I was wrong that was the fun bit! Next started the process of learning new software and making sure every detail is up to scratch, which makes it even more satisfying to see it in the flesh, makes me want to do more. Taking images with mates or new people and their machines then bringing that into this book format has been a great experience.
I made this book initially as simply a personal project photographing people and their bikes, blending two passions of mine; Choppers & Photography, but as time went on it started morphing into something more meaningful, meeting people from all walks of life, professional bike builders to shed tinkerers and everyone had a story, so being able to be brought into their worlds and spend some time photographing them felt so special and so I thought memorialising those stories through images and doing these people justice in a nice coffee table book was the apt thing.
So who is Kane Layland and what has lead him to producing Chips & chops?
I am, as of Christmas last year, now a family man! With my beautiful wife and daughter, and for the most part a fashion & portrait photographer. And when I say fashion, I don't mean Zoolander and crazy looks; I'm not the most fashionable guy, but I appreciate the visual aesthetic that comes along with a culture such as the chopper scene, its just making it your own and making imagery with it.
Working in this field I've always taken reference and aesthetic choices deriving from the chopper scene into my main work and so running this personal project along parallel has always been paramount to helping the other succeed. Being able to bring my eye from the fashion work into motorbikes with their details and nuances has been great and I continue to bring the chopper world into my main work, through either the vehicles themselves or simply the attitude / style. Making this book was simply the blending of two loves for me.
How do you think the scene in the UK compares to the rest of the world?
I think as with everywhere else it has this amazing sense of community and is such a close-knit group of people, that if you know one person, then chances are you know of or have heard of such and such, and so on. Everyone's always welcoming and friendly, despite some's more abrasive appearances, it's the nicest and coolest bunch of people with a great outlook on life. I wouldn't say it differs at all in that sense, just the surroundings we're in and the adjustments made. Take London for instance, full of traffic lights, tight turns and narrow lanes. Not the most ideal location for a long fork, tight T bar hard tail to be running, but you do it anyway because its the bollocks. Who wants something that is easy to ride and just works anyway.
Did you initially set out to have a very British feel to it?
The strong British element came progressively from noticing these almost funny moments of having this amazing piece of Americana history in the form of, lets say… Damons knucklehead for instance, but seeing it on random backstreet with bin men, delivery drivers dropped off mail… outside a Sainsbury’s… just the everyday life. Was an interesting dichotomy between the two and so I thought to play off of that a bit; Andy Clayton ripping down Bethnal Green busy high street, sliding sideways but the perfect point of the image being ruined by a cyclist just happening to get right in the way at the right time, I thought was just hilarious! Even though it ruined what could be a blinding shot, it made a moment that wouldn’t be recreated and was in a sense final, as I shot most of this book from the riding seat so these shots were rare and far between, and I like to think this book of being a nice collection of these moments, be them the ruined shots, nice bikes, or mundane juxtapositions of an amazing classic Harley Chop amongst something so plain, liking a Budgens corner shop.
What's next for you my friend ?
I've got a couple ideas for some more painterly style imagery scenes involving choppers and pushbikes so I'll see about making them happen, been thinking of that for a while, but I have a strong feeling I'll be starting to shoot and collate images for another project or perhaps even a volume 2, let's see how this one goes, but I'll hopefully be at some of the shows this year again, and just continuing with the work.. always learning
You can grab yourself a copy of Kane’s book by clicking below or go to his site.
