My hero, Olivero Toscani.
Piccadilly Circus fascinates me, I could stand there for hours. It was the first thing I did when I moved to London just over a couple years back. I'm yet to visit New York or Tokyo but I'm certain I'd be composited in the same manner.
When I first came across Toscani's work I was fascinated in the same manner. The diversity, the representation, but most importantly the truth. Although his prime was somewhat in the last 20+ years ago, I still consider his work the most influential photography I have seen, personally.
He relates to my dissertation very clearly: "What is the truth behind the representation of the LGBT+ community within modern day strategic advertising?" Besides that, this man's photography and the use of others such as Therese Fare is just unimaginable to me.
I wasn't alive for the AIDS crisis, I wasn't taught about at school, until we learned in one French lesson the word for AIDS in French, "Le SIDA". I didn't know what it meant, no-one in the class knew what it meant... so I researched it at home.
Finding out about the struggles of a community I knew I was part of but wasn't verbal about being part of has always puzzled me and I've wondered about it for ages. What Olivero Toscani did was take that worry that I had as a young gay man, take that worry that the entire global population had and plastered it over 30 foot high billboards.
