SYNOPSIS

Bangers And Blunts, a gritty collection of Polaroids and proofs from portrait photographer Clay Patrick McBride, offers a rare look at an even rarer breed of celebrity shooter – the kind who doesn’t give a fuck. A shaggy-haired, heavily tattooed maverick with an intimidating build and a gleaming gold tooth, McBride has spent the past 10 years shooting ballers like LeBron James, rappers like 50 Cent and rockers like Metallica for A-list magazines like Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone. That McBride enables his subjects to let down their guard is made abundantly clear throughout Bangers And Blunts. Familiar faces like Iggy Pop, Kanye West and Kobe Bryant are rendered patently unfamiliar by the degree of intimacy they exude before McBride’s lens. The normally beatific Al Green – captured here on the verge of either a laughing fit or an evangelical rant -- looks downright psychotic. Meanwhile, the grotesquely masked members of heavy metal outfit Slipknot have an almost soulful air. Punctuated by personal notes from the likes of Jay-Z and Billy Corgan (and an occasional mugging cameo by McBride himself), Bangers is an anarchic paean to celebrity and the artistic process.