Education
Kenyon College.
Kenyon College.
Mannion has shot over 300 album covers working closely with many hip hop legends including Jay Z, Doctor Dre, Aaliyah, Outkast, Nas, and Kendrick Lamar. Most recently he was the photographer behind the iconic Beats by Dre “Straight Outta” campaign. With English and American ancestry, he was raised in Cleveland, Ohio.
His mother is from London and his father from Brooklyn.
Mannion studied at Kenyon College in Ohio graduating with honors. In 1996 he moved from Cleveland to New York City.
New York and Richard Avedon Mannion worked for a year with photographer Richard Avedon in his Manhattan studio. Avedon had always been a major influence to Mannion as a young art student.
Mannion went on to work with photographers Ben Watts, Steven Klein and Marc Hom.
Jay-Z and hip hop In 1996, Mannion was commissioned, in his first major record company contract, to take photos of Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z for Reasonable Doubt. Mannion has gone on from that first assignment to photograph twenty years of hip hop history. Performers include: Aaliyah, Eminem, Nas, Busta Rhymes, Lil Wayne and others
In Mannion sued Coors for their unlicensed use of his photograph in one of their advertisements.
