Personal Project
My Roles: Creative Director, Photographer, Editor
Models: Fionn, Chelyn, Taylor, and Yasmin
In 2017, I started my clothing brand, Krause Avenue, using designs I drew and screen-printed.
In March of 2020, days before the pandemic, I took photos of my friends wearing my designs. All of these were shot inside of my garage at home with a DSLR camera and two professional lights.
With the tagline, "wear what you feel", Krause Avenue is an independent, black-owned clothing brand that wants to create high quality, functional streetwear that is fun and expressive. The brand values sustainability, social justice, and breaking social norms.
FIONN
Fionn was the hero of this shoot. Their dirty jeans, bright yellow hair, and black Doc Martens are all on brand for what Krause Avenue wants to represent: breaking away from social norms and being a passage for self-expression.
I directed them to make silly faces at the camera to mirror the image on the front of the "Cheese" tee-shirt. As they already had modeling experience (my other friends did not), I also requested that they use the milk crate as a prop to sit, stand, and play on for more dynamic photos.
For the photo below, I decided to leave the background in the edit as it felt raw, authentic, and real to the way I was running my brand - right out of my garage. In the far left of the frame, you can even see the table I use to screen-print the shirts the models are wearing.
The photoshoot was planned to focus on primary colors, bright energy, and fun expressions. Pictures like the one above exemplify the concept perfectly - bright yellow hair, a fun expression, and showing the BTS of the shoot.
Another goal for these images was to capture the personalities of my friends. Having known some of them since I was 13, they are both important to me as not only family but inspiration for the things I do and create today.
Chelyn
Chelyn has been a best friend of mine for years so I was very excited to be able to shoot with her. I directed her less around the camera as she is not an experienced model. Instead, I opted to turn on some of her favorite music and shoot based on the expressions and poses she was making to the songs. Overall, her pictures are more gritty so the editing style reflects that with the lower contrast and slight grain added to some of the photos.
Yasmin and Taylor
What Did I Learn from this Project?
Working on creating work for my own brand was harder than I originally anticipated. It takes a lot of introspection to be able to separate yourself from something you created to facilitate new ideas and perspectives on that thing. Especially because I just began to develop the brand identity of Krause Avenue at that time, I was trying to distinguish it from other streetwear brands too.
If I had a chance to redo this project, I would be more consistent with my editing choices. Some of Chelyn's images were edited to be grainier and have less contrast because of the attitude she was giving in the shoot. However, not every one of her images is edited in this way nor is anyone else's photos edited like that either.
