Joey Lawrence (or Joey L) is only 18 years old and has already become a premiere photographer in the business.

He’s has three agents in three different countries, done numerous commercial shoots for big companies and his stylized photography is already getting imitated by people all over the internet. Joey has already been able to travel the world and come up with some thrilling photojournalism pieces that accent his fantastic commercial portraits.

And please don’t mistake him for Joey Lawrence the actor (WHOA!).

(Askthephotographer) You’re 18 years old, you said you picked up a digital SLR roughly two years ago and now you’re traveling the world like a rockstar because of your photography. How do you think you’ve developed so quickly as a photographer?

(Joey L.) If I have developed quickly it is because the work I have been doing has been non-stop. I think a lot of photographers burn out and take long breaks because they are shooting the same thing over and over again. On shoots, most of the times I don’t know how to do what I said I was going to do. I have to make mistakes and figure it out. If a client wants something I will give them an idea that I’ll figure out later. That way it becomes more exciting and challenging. As soon as you get bored by your own work it becomes boring itself.

(Askthephotographer) When did you start getting interested in photography?

(Joey L.) ?I got interested in photography and video when I was 7 years old and made home movies of me and my friends being chased by dinosaur puppets. There was a break of many years when I was interested in drawing and painting but then I got back into it when digital point and shoot cameras became popular about 3 years ago. Professionally, I’ve been working for 1 year.

(Askthephotographer) Now how did you get started in the business, what kind of steps did you take to get your services and photographs out there? ?

(Joey L.) I started out shooting really lame artistic personal stuff like everyone else then eventually moved to shooting some music after those experiments. I worked with a music agent for a while who had some music contacts, then just now I’ve moved on to a photography-specific agent who brings in work from all sorts of clients.

(Askthephotographer) Who currently are your clients and what shoots do you currently enjoy the most, commercial shots or photojournalism shots of natural subjects?

(Joey L.) I have shot for Warner Bros, Arena, Atlantic, Victory, ect ect but I am most excited by my own travel photography because none of these have any rules to follow or budgets to work in between. BUT I am quite lucky to shoot what I do because it’s a lot of fun and there are barely any rules compared to other photographic work.

(Askthephotographer) Your photos are heavily stylized yet look very realistic as well, how much do you feel a photo should be photo shopped and when do you think a photographer has gone too far?

(Joey L.) They’ve gone too far when it looks stupid. Some of my photographs look stupid and I’ve gone too far. I’m more interested in experimenting and seeing new things than thinking about going too far. Some times it works, some times it doesn’t.

(Askthephotographer) How did you develop your style of photography? Was it kind of a Eureka! Moment or did you slowly develop it? ?

(Joey L.) It was gradual since I first started and it still is gradual and constantly changing. If I ever reach a “Eureka!” moment I’d shun myself for being such a self-absorbed prick. I have to keep changing things or I’d get bored of it and become something similar to a rogue traveling hippy that does nothing.

(Askthephotographer) What is your next step, you’ve said in other interviews that you’d like to become a filmmaker, would that mean you’d stop shooting stills? ?

(Joey L.) I don’t think I’ll ever stop shooting stills. But I am looking for a way to combine the two. I like music videos a lot and also some films, though I’m really picky. I’m still thinking about it.

(Askthephotographer) You’ve traveled all over the world, what so far has been your favorite place to do photojournalism work?

(Joey L.) In Benares, India.

(Askthephotographer) How hard has it been for you to travel so much?

(Joey L.) It would be hard if I didn’t enjoy it so much. I’m from a small town and hadn’t been more than 4 hours away from it by car two years ago. I feel very fortunate to be able to see the places I see. I want to be the old man telling crazy stories that no one believes when I’m older, then someone discovers they are actually true and goes wide-eyed and gasps in a catharsis style movie scene. If I can do that then I don’t really care how successful my photos are, that right there is the long-term goal!

(Askthephotographer) Now in your strobist blog interview, they made a point of pointing out that you don’t pack around thousands of dollars worth of equipment. You said that you shoot with a Canon 5D and speedlights, yet get fantastic results, is photography all about who’s operating the camera and not the camera that they’re carrying?

(Joey L.) I think having good equipment is important, but in many ways I agree with the Strobist way of thought. I did not get started with good equipment so I made it work with what I had and because of that I learned a lot of useful info so that when things go wrong on a shoot, I’m not lost. The only regret about my old work is that I can’t print it bigger without quality loss.

(Askthephotographer) What is your favorite photo that you’ve shot so far and how did you capture it?

(Joey L.) Still waiting to take my favorite photo…

(Askthephotographer) Can you explain to us your philosophy on photojournalism? You seem to still bring the stylized versions on your commercial shoots into this realm but they seem very real and very personal.

(Joey L.) I don’t think I make the best raw-type photojournalist because when shooting I am looking for stylized things such as good light and character. However, I do feel a lot of photojournalism must have good aesthetic to create a gripping, moving image that explains the story. I would probably be more successful in travel photography but those are never exciting stories, are they? So I’d say I like to combine a hint of realism in the character, but still present it in a visually interesting image.

(Askthephotographer) You said that a large part of your inspiration comes from movie lighting, would you recommend that more photographers observe films to get ideas about how to light certain shoots?

(Joey L.) I think that movies have the best cinematography. If you get a good cinematographer, you don’t really notice that the lights are placed where they make the subject look good but also in realistic places.

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(Askthephotographer) You do some pretty crazy commercial shoots with ideas that no one has seen before. How do you come up with these ideas?

(Joey L.) ??I just like to have fun, I’m not sure.

(Askthephotographer) How do the record companies and the band feel about some of these ideas and how do you convince them to let you do them?

(Joey L.) Most times they trust me, I can be very persuasive.

(Askthephotographer) If there were one person, dead, imaginary, or alive that you could shoot whom would it be? ?

(Joey L.) It would be cool to do some portraits of dinos!!!

(Askthephotographer) Do you feel that your age helps you with coming up with new ideas as opposed to a photographer that’s been doing it for years? ?

(Joey L.) Nah, not really. You can have good ideas old or young.

(Askthephotographer) You have said that you like dangerous places and war photography, why does that kind of stuff interest you?

(Joey L.) Well, to clear things up I’m not interested in photographing things just because they’re dangerous, and war is no place for a photographer like myself to dick around. But I would like to photograph rare things or events that do not happen all the time, or play an important role in history and present them to people. For example, I like photographing India because the place is changing so fast, and a lot of the stuff you see won’t be around in the next generation. I doubt I’ll ever cover a war or dangerous events specifically in photographs because of my style, but I may be interested in taking portraits and getting personal stories of people during one.

(Askthephotographer) You talk about interacting with your subjects, how important is it for photographers too not only be able to take the photos but be social beings as well? Do you feel that your personality makes people more comfortable and therefore leads to more natural photos?

(Joey L.) Interaction is one of the most important things. If you want to be a good photographer I would suggest studying character, culture, unconscious thought and body language in school rather than lighting and composition. Anyone can study the basics of photography but it takes a lot of practice and honesty to make people comfortable around you.

(Askthephotographer) What advice would you give to photographers just starting out?

(Joey L.) Post as much stuff on the Internet as possible, it’s a great outlet for sharing work and getting advice from other photographers. There’s so much free and cheap information and tutorials (compared to going to college, for example) that it’s kind of ridiculous to even think about art college. That’s my opinion, anyway.

(Askthephotographer) Now your Photoshop tutorials have become quite popular. How did you get started doing this tutorials and did you imagine they’d become this in demand?

(Joey L.) The most important thing my tutorial shows is not a clever photoshop trick (though there are quite a few) but a workflow in learning how to use (and abuse) simple tricks to get exactly what you want out of Photoshop. It’s important to use it as a tool only, so if you want to get a certain look, you know exactly what steps to take in both the execution of the photo to the post work.

Thanks Joey!

To check out more of Joeys work go to

http://Joeyl.com

http://joeyl.com/blog/

for information on his tutorials go to http://tutorial.joeyL.com/

 

 

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