The Anatomy of Photographing a British Party
Apparatus, Giorgio de Chirico and the Pet Shop Boys.
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Photographing parties is my heroin. I haven’t been blessed with the art of small talk, so being in a room full of 300 strangers without a camera is an anxious ordeal. The camera transforms all that anxiety into a euphoric high. What I lack in social skills is made up by sniper-like observation of public interactions. Every party is a smorgasbord of eloquent details — gestures, glances, posture, self-presentation, and interactions. My thrill comes from using all these fragments to weave together a unique story of each party.
Design studio Apparatus, throws an annual party that revives the feverish decadence of New York City’s nightlife. The New York Times summed up these annual gatherings in a feature article, “This Design Studio Knows How to Party.” In 2019, I photographed Apparatus’ gothic-tinged masquerade in an abandoned theater in Harlem, complete with a full gospel choir. Last year, the vibe was 1960s jazz elegance, for which a jazz club was built in midtown Manhattan for three days only. This year, the party was held in London.
My obsession when shooting parties is dissecting social chaos into visual layers. The crazier, sweatier, denser — the better the photos. In London, I had to pivot. In place of sexual pandemonium, the party showcased a nuanced take on British fun. The lace and leather debauchery of New York City was replaced by tweed and polite curiosity. Guests kept their social distances, couples didn’t touch hands, and end-of-night revelers didn’t exchange a single drunken kiss. I had to look for different elements to construct the drama I crave.
For every event that I photograph, I bring in different influences to shape my approach —a painting, a song, a scene from a movie — anything and everything that inspires me at the moment. The London party was happening in the newly opened furniture design outpost of Apparatus. The sculptural shapes of the space reminded me of Giorgio de Chirico’s dreamlike, eerily deserted cityscapes. The painter took classic elements of a city — plazas, arches, statues, and trains — and distorted them into disquieting versions of themselves by using flattened space, exaggerated shadows, and contorted perspectives. I wanted to bring his sense of the familiar becoming foreign into my approach for the event.
At the same time, a song was spinning obsessively in my head — Pet Shop Boy’s Dreaming of the Queen. This most English of all of Pet Shop Boy’s songs recounts an anxious dream of meeting Queen Elizabeth II and has a haunting melody that is undercut by foreboding. The melancholy whimsy of the Pet Shop Boys overlapped perfectly with de Chirico’s uncanniness and crystalized my intention. Instead of arranging the party into layers of social situations, I dissected the space into disembodied details and fragments of interactions that emphasized anticipation, stillness, and hints of decadence. People were photographed as sculptural objects, and the objects as figures in a landscape. The narrow-focused, off-camera flash created drama with angular contours of light and shadow. Mirrors contributed to the surrealist effect, compressing a room full of people into vignettes.
When I photograph for someone else, whether it’s a magazine or a private client, there is a delicate balance between my own sensibilities and the client’s intentions. Working with Apparatus is a rare case where visions align in perfect symbiosis. The firm’s creative director, Gabriel Hendifar, is a storyteller who imbues everyday objects with emotion, and the parties are an extension of the design firm’s fantasy environments. Within this world, I am able to experiment and explore concepts that are usually constrained to personal projects. In other words, I can play.
After photographing the three nights in London, with the help of Apparatus, de Chirico, and the Pet Shop Boys, I discovered something that has eluded me for years — novel possibilities of visualizing parties. Few things are more invigorating than finding new plots in familiar situations. Tonight, I am shooting a party for the New York Times, and I can’t wait to incorporate bits and pieces of these ideas into my approach.
Stay tuned.
To read - Don’t Stop the Dance: The Anatomy of Photographing a Party, Apparatus, NYC. 2022
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Another inspiring post, thanks! I can see how visual design filled the gaps left by the more subtle gestures and appearances. My favorite is the glass with the broken stem elegantly carried on the tray.
fascinating to hear about your process for both this and the American parties. I am curious about how you work with an assistant to shoot events though? Are they someone you work with so often that they just know where you want them? or are you just asking them to be in a certain spot because you are anticipating a movement that you think might happen because of the way you have studied the crowd?