I would work at Avedon, I would finish at 9pm, I'd go home, have a slice of pizza because
I was making like a dollar a week and then we'd go out to the clubs and I would shoot.
My passion was music, L&L, Scratch and Heavy D and Puff and you know like these were the
things that enabled me to build relationships because people saw me over and over.
Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt 1996 was my first ever album cover.
I did volume one, volume two, this one for the blueprint and sort of ending up a decade
worth of work with him.
From that I got an opportunity to go down to Atlanta and see what the South was all
about.
Conceptually I came up with the idea, I said what a stankonia means to you and Dre said
freedom and I said finally the biggest flag in all of Atlanta.
This is Pentax 67, we used to have about like seven or eight of these like in rotation
on any given shoot.
I've paid so much money and like excess baggage for carting these things around.
Now people would like travel with cards and rent things including me like wherever I go
I just get a camera.
I think one of the biggest gifts that I have had in my career that I actually really fought
for was this photo with Alia.
I was sort of the unconscious choice for like you know thugs and rappers and tricky situations
or things that needed to be solved despite my working for Richard Avedon and like one
of the greatest fashion photographers to ever do it.
So I had to fight my way in for this and thank God I did it and it ended up being her last
photo shoot before she passed.
When Jay-Z was beefing with Nas I shot God, Son and that album you know and DMX was beefing
with Jarl Ruhl we did both of those albums so it's sort of like I don't know I felt like
I guess my contribution doesn't have to be politically sided you know you don't have
to choose you just have to make them look great and unique.
This big, giant, massive workhorse the Deirdo Field Camera it's what Avedon shot in the
American West on, it's like a little hollow on the inside, the film goes in this back
there's film backs, you can slide down into here, you focus upside down, if I pull this
out you know you're pretty special man because it doesn't come out of the closet very often.
Photographers before digital photography came like yes we had Polaroids to sort of give
us an idea that we're in the right place it sort of gave us a sense but you still had
to know that you had the shot right because there was no like oh well just look you're
not editing on the fly you had to hire somebody because you knew that they were going to get
it.
Now I find that the playing field has leveled significantly and especially all that you
can do with you know sort of the digital art form and manipulating but I still think it
comes down to like the moments.
Can you get the moments?
Are they authentic?
Do they feel like something?
Do they evoke you know an emotion from the viewer?
Those are all the things that are important in the photography period.
