Bio:
L.A. born artist Eric Coleman began taking pictures at the age of twelve. His youthful hobby led to a career as a professional photographer in which, over a 10-year period, Coleman has grown to be an innovator with a unique style of photography. Coleman deepened his appreciation and enthusiasm for photography while attending The Royal College of Art in London. There he was able to cultivate his distinctive style of visual communication while honing his craft with top level professionals.
He gained his first editorial commissions while working as a freelance photo assistant for some of the most acclaimed photographers of our time such as Peter Lindhberg, Melodie Mcdaniel, Steve Heitt, Robert Erdman and Rankin. Coleman has honed his skills in a diverse range of fields such as fine art, photo journalism, fashion, landscape and music photography.
Eric Coleman partnered with L.A. based photographer B+ to form Mochilla, a production company that has grown to produce several films, music videos and music albums. As an Executive Producer and Cinematographer, Coleman spent the last three years working on “Brasilintime: Batucada com Discos” a film that explores the shared relationship between hip-hop and Brasilian music.
Coleman has exhibited his photographic work at the Transport Gallery in Los Angeles, Commonwealth Gallery in Virginia and the Royal Academy of Art Gallery in London. His photographs have graced the pages of numerous publications including InStyle, ReUp, Fader, Teen Vogue and many others. He shoots for record labels such as Stones Throw, Warner Brothers Music, JazzySport Japan, etc.
He has photographed actors and artists such Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Terrence Howard, Fergie (Black Eyed Peas), Madlib, Hill Harper, Christina Milian, DJ Shadow, Ernie Barnes, Faith Evans and MF Doom. Eric Coleman has produced popular photographic campaigns for many apparel manufacturers such as Vans, Elements, Elwood, Aesthetics, Alphanumeric, Live Mechanics and many more.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Mochilla is a production company formed by photographers Eric Coleman and B+ in 1997. The pair were working on a music video for DJ Shadow (High Noon) near the Teotichucan pyramids outside Mexico City. During a conversation with the Mexican producer in an attempt to explain their philosphy of shooting they stumbled on the Spanish word for backpack - Mochila.
In 1997 backpack was an almost derogatory term for independent hip-hop. Backpackers kept their rhyme books or spray cans with them at all times and this required a bag. The bag would be slung across their backs so that they would be mobile. “If the equipment doesn’t fit in the backpack we wont shoot it” became the defining rule in the formation of Mochilla.
It was part practical adage (both photographers being committed to a practice that prioritizes engagement over production scale) — part nod to the group of film makers called Dogma started by Lars Van Triers. Twenty years later Mochilla has produced multiple music videos, many music documentaries, several ad campaigns, twenty mix cds, two remix albums and more than one hundred album covers and it continues to grow.
The pair were instrumental in Banksy's Oscar nominated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Both Coleman and B+ have taken their respective fields to new heights selling films to the Sundance Channel, being distributed by Ninja Tune, touring Europe several times, executing campaigns for Levis, Adidas, Dickies and Vans. They have shown their work as Mochilla on five continents. They both have successful solo careers but their continuing collaboration is housed at Mochilla.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).