We first got to know Aundre Larrow through our friends at 100cameras (one of our non-profit partners), although we later realized that he used to work in the same building in New York City as our team. Over the course of the past year, we've had the pleasure of getting to know this talented shutterbug, who also shot the lifestyle photography for the ONA x 100cameras collaboration bag.
Learn more about Aundre in this latest edition of our Photographer Profile series.
Aundre carries the Leather Brixton in antique cognac.
ONA: How did you get into photography?
AL: It’s kind of a winding path. At first, I got into photography in high school. My theater teacher Lee Tempest gave me a Minolta SRT-101 as a gift for my 15th birthday. I would take it around with me and play around with it on occasion. It wasn’t until I met my friends Jeff Gardner and Katie Sayer, however, that photography started to be something important to me. Jeff was a great artist -- he would create music, paint, and design things. I was so envious of how talented he was.
As we spent more time together, I asked myself what I could do to express artistically -- so I used the Minolta more and more and started to fall in love. It took deeper roots once I started to hang out with Katie, and would see how she used it to capture the nuances and beauty of the world around her. I would borrow cameras from her and just experiment.
ONA: What camera do you shoot with? What is your “go to” lens of choice?
AL: I love shooting with my iPhone, to be honest. But my true baby is my Canon 6D. The 35mm f/1.4L is my best friend.
ONA: What sort of project drives your creativity? And what is your dream project?
AL: Any project that involved multiple models is really interesting thing to me because it showcases the differences in the human spirit. I would love to do a portrait series of a group of people as they started college, spanning over a decade. I would call it ‘Bright Eyes.’
ONA: What is the hardest thing about being a photographer?
AL: I think it's managing expectations. Each time you work with a client, you have to spend time getting to know them and their expectations. That means constant communication. It means mood boards. It means allowing them to give you edits. That isn’t easy because you want to believe that your creative vision is king.
ONA: Describe your style of shooting.
AL: Since I primarily shoot portraits, I spend the beginning of the shoot talking a lot to the model, trying to get a feel for them, and to see what makes them comfortable. Then I use my test shots and first few shots to relax the model so that as we build to the shot I am envisioning, they are loose and feeling comfortable. Besides that, if it’s an outdoor shoot I go a day or two before to try and see the location and its light around the time of the shoot so I can figure out how to manipulate it to best capture the subject. Knowledge of the light and the subject lets me find features of theirs that I can make the focal point of the image. (And if I can’t find one, I usually try for smile, eyes, or hair.)
ONA: In one sentence, what advice would you give to a photographer just starting out?
AL: Shoot what you know -- master how to tell that story.
ONA: How did you hear about us?
AL: I heard about you all through my friends at 100cameras.
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Photos of Aundre kindly taken by Karston Tannis.