Who Shot the Pregnant Man?: The creative revolution through the lens of Alan Brooking

For anyone keen to understand what sparked advertising’s creative revolution, this book provides an indispensible account. It explores the oft-misconstrued smugness of the Mad Men era, the very mindset that triggered a radical change in UK advertising. The year was 1961, the revolutionaries―the fabled Collett Dickenson Pearce agency. As one of its first Art Directors, Alan Brooking was at the forefront of the revolution in Britain, commissioning photographers such as Duffy, Donovan and Elliott Erwitt. But after 5 years creating award-winning ads, he left to set up as a photographer in his own right. At a time when budgets were big and lunches lasted all afternoon, his story transports us from exotic jungles to battlefields of tanks; from the surreal art form of Benson & Hedges, to the zigzagging sheep for Levi’s jeans. As well as revealing the inside stories behind over 60 fascinating shoots, we go behind the scenes with adland luminaries John Hegarty, David Puttnam, and Charles Saatchi. From the swinging `60s to the wild excesses of the 1980’s, we learn what inspired him to capture some of advertising’s most enduring images. And why his portrait of an enigmatic pregnant man is still engaging audiences almost half a century later.