Copyright is Brian Griffin’s first self-published artist’s book, originally released in 1978 in a limited edition of around 500 copies. It is a tightly constructed sequence of black-and-white photographs paired with graphic interventions by designer Barney Bubbles, forming a hybrid object that is part photobook, design artefact, and conceptual publication.

The book presents a series of staged male portraits, often formal and hieratic in composition, where figures appear isolated, ritualised, or suspended in ambiguous narrative situations. Griffin’s images draw on art-historical references—particularly Renaissance painting and expressionist cinema—translating their theatrical lighting and emotional intensity into photographic form.