Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with good friend, photographer and Gooner Nipon Ravel (Website | Instagram), to discuss his upcoming Zine and Exhibition Glance (which runs this weekend!).

A: Great to see you Nipon! I believe you have some exciting news to share?

N: Likewise mate. There's two exciting things happening for me at the moment; I have a Zine and an Exhibition.

A: Wow, that’s great!

N: Yeah. The Zine is one that I've been meaning to do for years and years and years. I wouldn't call it peer pressure, but you and Josh were saying we've got to do a Zine, and we all agreed. Sometimes I need the push or to have a collaborative effort to get things going, so this was a great motivation to do it.

N: So the Zine is the first thing that's happening. It’s due to be launched next week. I've been working on it for many years, but in earnest for about four to five months. All the advice and learnings from your and Josh’s zines have been a big help too [See my post on “Carnival”].

A: Always happy to help mate. So I know you’ve been shooting the work for many years but what did you pick up in earnest in the last 4-5 months?

N: It was a case of going through a lot of photos! Let's say when you go out on a Saturday, you take 500 photos. You go home, you have in your mind what you think's good, so you'll go straight to those. You'll flag them up, but then you'll go through the rest of them and go “Actually, no, these are quite good as well”. And then you'll have a bunch of photos that you're going to do something with. And then out of that bunch, you might use three or four. I had near enough 10 years of this back catalogue, just to look through what I've taken in Soho.

A: Where do you even start with 10 years of a back catalogue? What were the challenges?

N: Lots of challenges! What have I missed? Were the ones that I chose the right ones? Is how I edit now different to how I edited a year ago? two years ago? and especially 10 years ago? It was so laborious, but I had to do it just so I could say I've looked through it all.

A: In 10 years a lot can change, not just stylistically, but also the editing and technology. It’s great to be consistent over that amount of time. I guess it's all digital, right?

N: Absolutely all digital. Also all shot on Sony. Different lenses, different models, different ability of photography as well. My ability 10 years ago is not what it is now. It was interesting just to go through that and see it, but the essence is consistent. If you look at the oldest photo that I've got in the zine, which goes back to 2018, the look and feel is consistent with the more recent images.

A: So I'm holding the Zine in front of me right now. It’s great work! For any readers here, we’ve mentioned that it’s on soho, but could you elaborate a bit more, including on the title, “Inside Out”?

N: Thank you. “Inside Out” is the project. I had a phase of just doing night shots and working shots from outside on the street, sometimes peering through into windows. Then I had an idea for a project about shooting from within places. I drink at a lot of well-known pubs in Soho. I know Soho really well. Initially I wanted to feature three pubs but two really stood out. They also gave me the permission, so I shot within the pubs as well as from the outside, from the streets of Soho. So that's concept. It's photographs from both sides. Inside and Out.

A: Do you want to reveal the pubs or do you want to keep it a secret?

*A shot of The Blue Posts, as I don’t go inside pubs mum*

N: No, I don't mind revealing them. I think they're quite well known. The blue posts is first pub and that's the place that, I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, I've been drinking in for 30 years.

A: I think that's a good thing. It must be good. You’ve thought about how much you've improved as a photographer in 10 years. Imagine how much you've improved as a drinker in 30 years.

*A regular scene at the Coach and Horses*

N: Not sure about that! The second pub is the coach and horses, and that's another really well-known pub. They're the two that I felt that I could go inside and get something good, or that of a subject that stood outside through the windows, as they are particularly beautiful.

I love the anonymity, the frosted window sort of look. They're both beautiful pubs, and I think they're both listed. The coach and horses have these unique sorts of pillars and it's just a stunning, stunning pub to shoot from inside and out.

A: Looking at the Zine, one of my favourite shots is the last one, which is inside of a bus looking out, with an amazing red kind of glow coming through the windows.

N: That is literally on the way home. About 1am in the morning, just as I got on bus in Soho back to South-East London.

*Nipon in front of one of my favourite shots at the Glance exhibition*

A: Your earliest photo in here is 2018 but what is the most recent one?

N: I think you might have been with me actually Ad, or maybe it was Josh but it’s one at the Coach and Horses. It is from 2025, we had a little table in the corner, and we had this lady come over with her family. Her husband went to the bar and there I was with my camera. We also had a conversation about the photo, she really loved it so I gave her a copy.

A: Ok, let’s talk printing. You used Mixam?

N: Printed with Mixam, it's perfect bound. It's around about 48 pages, about 38 to 40 images. I've gone for an uncoated cover, with gloss pages, I think 300 GSM on the cover and 170 for the pages. I went through quite a few test runs.

A: Good idea.

N: I think I've printed five or six test prints, just to try the different options out. I was initially going for the more standard portrait orientation, but looking at the collection of shots I had, the ones that I liked the most were in landscape orientation, so it made sense for me to explore doing them in landscape, and that's what I stuck with.

Mixam we're pretty good in parts, not so good in certain other parts, but overall, for the price that I'm paying for the simplicity of the software, I can't really grumble. I had planned on learning InDesign but considering the learning curve and the subscription, the Mixam software made the most sense.

A: Yeah, I think we all have these grand ideas until you see how much a subscription is just for InDesign. It's insane [£263/Yr].

N: Well, I ended up still paying two months of the subscription, but I think the more painful thing for me personally would have been the amount of time it would have taken me just to get something produced on there. You know, I would have spent an absolute age doing that.

A: Well, it's come out perfectly. I think the silk finish has really made the colours pop and the contrast is great on this.

N: Yeah, the silk finish gives a heavy, heavy contrast, doesn't it? And a lot of the shots are a high contrast level, so it worked really well for me.

You and some others have mentioned that the 10 years of work is quite a body of work. This also made the landscape orientation make sense as it feels something more than a zine but not a book. Do you know what I mean?

A: And maybe you created the first Zook.

N: Or Bine

A: You could be known as Mr Bine.

N: Oh dear, you got you got you got to keep these jokes in. You got to keep them in the actual blog, mate.

A: Yeah, I might cut some of this out. So where and when can people get their hands on one of these?

N: I will have some copies at the exhibition this weekend, available for purchase in person, but will be launching online next week. I’ll share a link to buy it online on my Instagram, so stay tuned! I also plan to have copies available at the London Photographer's Gallery.

A: OK, perfect. So you can't miss it.

*Nipon with collaborating Artist, Edie Cantrill*

A: Moving on to the next exciting bit of news that you mentioned: The exhibition!

N: Yes, yes, yes. I'm collaborating with an artist on this exhibition, Edie Cantrill. She is multidisciplinary and does tapestries, collages and paintings. She does a whole array of things. She also has a degree and master’s in arts and is currently working on a doctorate. She knows her stuff!

We met about 6-7 years ago, drunken Christmas Party. We were aware of each others work through a mutual friend before then, so when we met, it was like “Oh my God, love your stuff” La, la, la, all that going on and you know. I said we've got to have a chat about doing something. You know, there is a sort of synergy. I hate that word, but there is, you know, there's a similarity.

N: We had our first conversation about what could work over lockdown. We spoke how my Soho stuff, my windows stuff and Edie’s anonymity and portraits could all work well together. Our work is very candid, a lot to do with human connection, even if Edie’s work can be quite racy and more with femininity.

We never set a date of anything like that, but it sort of came to life mid-2024 and I said well, I think we need to do it next year. So the ball was rolling and planning was started! I was a little bit nervous at the start but not anymore, it’s more stress now but I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Everything is in place now and it’s going to take place next week in Shoreditch [148 Curtain Road, EC2A 3AT]. There is going to be a private view on the 6th of November from 6pm to 9pm and exhibiting all the way through to the Sunday, 9th of November.

Every piece of work that’s on the walls will be in the Zine too, bar one piece.

A: With your work being based in Soho, how did you land on Shoreditch as the location to hold the exhibition?

N: The biggest thing was is to find a venue. We're both artists, we're not loaded in a way we can just go and pay £5000 for a week in a small gallery in the West End, because that's how much you're looking at. So we were looking at alternatives, places that support artists, places like that. That was quite hard to be honest with you.

We did find a good place in Soho. We were very close to signing the contract, but they started putting up lots of barriers. You can't use social media, you must be ticketed and “Oh, we've got another event on that night”. So we thought this isn't for us. They're not for us. It was Pretty unprofessional.

We started looking for somewhere else and it took three months to find, but this place in Shoreditch is great. I've got a very good feeling about it. The people in this gallery are very accommodating and all very artistic people themselves. The company is called TBA, Time Based Arts. They actually own the gallery and have a post-production film house. Lovely people. So the venue was done [Venue: 148 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3AT].

A: How did you manage printing and mounting?

N: It was it was a case of looking at quality first and foremost, cost second. You know, I didn't want just to go down and print them out and stick them up on the wall with blue tack. I would have liked to put them all in frames, with lovely non-photographic glass, but that is a very costly way to do things and I'm funding all of this.

I came up with a place that I could get them printed, not framed. They're going to be on a hard card sort of backing, 3 millimetres thick. The quality's fantastic. The price is, I'd say, about 1/3 of what the framing was costing.

A: Brilliant. I know you're a bit short on time but I did have one other question. When you came to selecting the images that you wanted to put in exhibition, did you have to consider the work from Edie to see how they would work together or was it made in isolation?

N: We aways shared our work that we feel we’ll put in the show with each other. Like she would guide me and say “oh maybe out of those three, leave that one and put that one in”, and I'd do the same with her. Just to make sure that there is a synergy, there is a similarity.

*A great double page spread from the Zine transformed onto Tiles by Edie*

N: There is this piece where we asked, how do we do a true collaboration? You've got your work. I've got my work. It's all kind of similar, but we need you need to produce something together. So Edie has taken two of my photos from the coach and horses, and has recreated those in tiles. The images are both sitting next to each other in the Zine so Edie has recreated one of my pieces in her style.

A: One of my favourite spreads in the Zine, it's another little bonus for anyone who gets the Zine.

*Collaborative portraits of Soho legend, Mark Powell*

N: We also did another collaboration on a new piece of work based around a portrait. I came up with a person who's an absolute Soho legend, who is just about to celebrate his 40th year of business in Soho; Mark Powell. He's a tailor to the stars. So I approached him.

Funnily enough I was out on the street, a sunset on Oxford Street, and a saw him walking up. I Hadn't really had a conversation with him until that point, so went up and went and asked for a photo. He agreed and posed, so I took the shots. I then told him about the idea with Edie and he said he would love to do that and asked us to pop down to the shop andhave a chat about it.

So I think about a week and a bit ago, Edie and I spent an hour with him. I took photos and Edie took sketches. She's doing her thing, and I've got my photo that's going to go up on the wall, and we're going to have them both side by side. I don't know if we should have something written at the bottom. I think it will just be a nice thing to talk about, to be honest with you, rather than having something written.

A: I think that sounds like a great idea. Final question; how did the name “Glance” come about? What's the meaning behind it?

N: Cheers mate. Our work is quite similar in essence. Like how sometimes in my work you can catch an anonymous passing glance, or how there is a level of anonymity and detachment in Edie’s work. We came up with about 10 different names and we just kept on coming back to glance. We didn't want something that was too wordy.

A: Well thank you for your time Nipon! I know we’ve overrun. Congrats on the Zine, it’s top work and I can’t want to see the exhibition!

N: Cheers mate. It’s been hard work but it’s great to see it all come to fruition! I’m really happy with the Zine and the Exhibition and I look forward to welcoming you and everyone there!

Interview with Nipon Ravel on his Zine & Exhibition!

What’s in the box? (an unboxing)