Jonathan Mannion

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Jonathan Mannion (December, 1970) is a photographer and film director ^[1]. With English and American ancestry, he was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His father and mother are both well known Midwest artists.^[vague] His mother is from London and his father from Brooklyn.^[2]

1 College
2 New York and Richard Avedon
3 Jay Z, Hip Hop and Beyond
4 Album photography by Mannion
5 Notes
6 References and links

[edit] College

Mannion studied at Kenyon College in Ohio. He graduated with honors, and soon recognized that he had cinematic and creative urges that he couldn't ignore any longer.^{[citation needed]} It was at that point, in 1996, that he moved from Cleveland to New York City.

[edit] New York and Richard Avedon

From his first days in Manhattan, he was driven and relentless. His favorite music, hip hop, was created in the Bronx only a mile or two from his first apartment. He understood the buzz of the city,^{[citation needed]} and it in turn inspired him in many ways.

Mannion worked for a year with photographer Richard Avedon ^[3] in his Manhattan studio. Avedon had always been a major influence to Mannion as a young art student, so it was an experience that changed his perspectives radically. His influence in Mannion's work is very apparent, even a decade later.^{[citation needed]} Mannion went on to work with photographers Ben Watts and Marc Hom.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Jay Z, Hip Hop and Beyond

In 1996, Mannion was commissioned, in his first major record company contract, to take photos of Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z for the Reasonable Doubt album^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7]. Mannion has gone on from that first assignment to photograph ten years of hip hop performers: Aaliyah, Eminem, Nas, Busta Rhymes , Lil Wayne and others.^[8]