Finding the In-Between Moment

Answering the challenging question that is: “what’s your style?”

I go through eras in the same way that fashion and art and music do. My style has visually evolved, taken shape by the places I have been and the people that I have met along the way. I think that it should. If it stayed the same I’d still be dressing the talent in skinny jeans and untied Converse high-tops, curating an Instagram post within an inch of its life and putting the Valencia filter with its heavy vignette on everything. I think we can all agree that that would be kind of crazy.

But there is something I have identified as a constant through it all: an obsession with capturing in-between moments. I was doing it before I even recognized that I was doing it. In my efforts to make something feel believable, I gravitated toward it. The off-the-cuff, mid-sentence, “getting there” moment. For me, it has always felt the most natural. When something feels effortless and natural, I believe it and, therefore, want it. I don’t want things that feel fussy, complicated and difficult (though I will always admire those who have the patience for that kind of thing).

I recently had a great conversation with the creative co-founder of Dagne Dover, Jessy. We were talking about how we want to capture the bags, when they feel most natural and relatable, regardless of the setting. She said that the bags should exist in the space between living and being. My brain happily vibrated at that wording. It made a lot of sense. You don’t really sit with a bag and think on it, you go somewhere with it. Duh. Just… duh.

Since I have identified this so-called style, I have been able to take note of how I get there. Through thoughtful pre-production I build a comfortable set, shoulders relax and the crew can express themselves. By keeping conversation flowing, I encourage natural facial expressions and believable laughs. I trickle in directions as opposed to demanding them, letting people find their flow and get there together. There’s nothing that I love more than orchestrating a good time and how it ends up showing itself in the work.

I have pulled a bunch of these choice moments here. Each of them prompted a memory of the day. Thank you to everyone that I have the opportunity to create with.

And to my reader, if we ever meet, remind me to tell you the stories.