Interview conducted on May 15, 2023
By Ryan Lowe, Edited by Ben Pigott
Ryan Lowe: New York Based photographer who enjoys focusing their lens on fashion… How did this career come to fruition?
Hunter Abrams: I grew up always drawing and always focused on drawing clothes and fashion. When I was 7 or 8 years old my parents took me to the Guggenheim and there was this Giorgio Armani exhibit. Maybe the earliest was watching the red carpet at The Oscars as a kid with my grandma or my parents. The earliest definitive memory of seeing clothes in real life was the Armani exhibit and realizing this is a career — this a world that exists beyond the television. I think I came home and immediately started drawing clothes. By the time I was 12, I discovered Style.com. I think at one point I think I looked through every image on Style.com, I needed to see everything. At the time Style.com was the hub for Vogue and W magazine so “everything” was there.
I was waiting for a cover to come out because I realized that covers would always come out on the last five days of the month previous. So I googled “the cover” and found The Fashion Forum Spot. I think I found Italian Vogue through the Fashion Forum Spot and looking through Steven Meisel’s photographs and seeing a whole other level of photography there. At the time I really wanted to be a fashion illustrator so I’d go through the art and design board and see what people would draw. Basically a project runway via illustration and there would be these challenges like “design a dress for The Met for your favorite model” and the person who proposed the challenge would pick the winner. Whoever was the winner would pick the next challenge and so on and so forth. I think I followed that thread until it died.
I just got very deep into this fashion hole, and then Youtube came about... I was watching Tim Blanks videos for years and years. Then to bring it full circle, when Katie Grand launched Perfect magazine. I shot two of the first covers for her and one of the special covers was Tim by Rafael Pavarotti and I was sobbing when the covers came out. I can’t believe my photos are on a cover that is also shared with Tim Blanks
RL: Have you always resided in NYC?
HA: I grew up on Long Island, I went to high school at Cold Spring Harbor High School. There was a teacher named Rosemary Folks who started a fashion class where it was like Project Runway and every month you had a challenge and you had to create a project. One would be with printmaking, one would be we're going to make things out of paper this month, it was more arts and craftsy. It was more hot glue than Haute Couture. It was really amazing to have a teacher say, “This is the brief, come up with your own idea.”
RL: Any college education?
HA: I went to NYU for a year then dropped out.
Sidenote: I went to a school called Huntington School of Fine Arts run by Lisa Hock-Mack for about seven-eight years. You would go after school for three hours, three times a week. You could drive from a live model, you could paint, you could sculpt, do your own projects. It was very much like a pre-college program and I did that for years.
When I dropped out of NYU, it was because I knew it wasn’t right. I think I was there a week, and I was in an English class, and there was a girl who wrote an entire two-paragraph piece on the use of a comma. I walked out of that class and was like “I don’t belong here.”
After a year, I dropped out but I was there for studio art: painting, drawing, and sculpture and it was really a foundation year.
RL: I saw you at the Christopher John Rogers show a little under a month ago… What is your relationship like with CJR and his brand?
HA: I love Christopher, I’m a fan, a customer, a cheerleader. I love Chris. I love everything he’s been doing. The first time I met Chris was the day he presented to the judges for CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund because I shot all the contestants getting ready. It was a very stressful day for them and he was so nice. I was a fan of his for a year or so beforehand because I had been seeing some of the stuff he had been doing, but it was really amazing to watch him progress through the fund and eventually win it. To see everything that has come after that has been so well deserved. It's just incredible. I see him as someone who wants to be in this business for the right reasons. He isn’t in it to be famous or the ego. He is in this because this is the only thing he can only see himself doing, and that’s kinda how I feel about myself.
RL: You’ve worked with publications like Vogue, LOVE magazine, and Vanity Fair, how do those relationships come about?
HA: I’m somewhat ashamed and proud of this. I have never really sent a pitch email. Emily Rosser was one of the people who hired me at Vogue.com and brought me on and asked me to do my first Met Gala. Her last day at Vogue was the day after The Met. I came by to pick up my hard drive and was like “I just want to say thank you so much for doing this for me.” The time Vogue started reaching out to work with me was a time when I was very eager to work with them. A lot of my friends were telling me “It’s time, you’re ready,” but I didn’t feel ready. I didn’t feel strong enough. I didn’t feel confident enough. You only get one first impression, and the one thing I didn’t want was to email them and be told “No.” Then every time I tried again I would be looked at in their inboxes, “Oh, that was the one who wasn’t read.” and so I just didn’t do it.
I really owe my career to several women who saw something in me before I saw it in myself: Samantha Adler, Emily Rosser, Nikki Krecicki, Candace Stewart, Tiffany Bloomfield, Stephanie Ketty, and of course Katie Grand, and Anna Wintour.
RL: Portraits are your strong suit, it seems, what makes you enjoy that intimate style of photography so much?
HA: I like that one-on-one time. I like getting to know someone. Look, I love a big party and enjoy going out. But I’m never going to walk away from a big party thinking, “Oh, I’m so glad I got to spend that time with people.” It’s almost like you go to a big party to lose yourself, not to find someone else. I think that’s what I like about portraits, you are finding yourself in someone else. I also shot parties for BFA for four or five years. I enjoy shooting events and I feel like I’ve mastered shooting events. I don’t think you’ll ever master a portrait. I think the closest anyone has ever come to mastering it is Irving Penn.
RL: What does Hunter Abrams need to capture a magnificent photo?
HA: It really could be anything. A lot of my friends who don’t work in photography or fashion will come to me and ask “Which camera should I buy/use?” and most of the time the kind of photo they want to take is a nice photo of their family, friends, or their lover. The best camera is the one that’s closest to your hand. Otherwise, the moment is just going to slip away. It really isn’t about having the tools. The best tool for the job is the one that’s in your hand.
RL: Photographing the Met Gala must be so surreal. Tell me about some of your favorite Met Gala stories that someone may not know about
HA: The joke is I never went to Prom in high school so I kept calling this latest one my “Senior Prom.” That night means so much to me. I grew up on Long Island. The first time I remember going to The Met I was nine or ten years old. There was the Jackie Kennedy exhibit. I think Hamish Bowles curated it. I remember waiting a long time, it was kind of like the McQueen show. The line wrapped around the museum and I remember we waited hours on hours to see it. I remember when we finished seeing the exhibit, I turned to my mom and told her “I want to go through it again” and my mom was like “We’re not waiting in line again”
Getting to do anything with the Costume Institute means so much. One of my first assignments for Vogue.com was with Steff Yotka, we went into the archive in The Met and we shot in the basement. In the closets, the closets being temperature controlled, plastic free, acid-free paper everywhere. There was a moment where they took out some things and me and Steff turned to each other and we were sobbing. We were like, “I can’t believe we’re seeing this in real life.” I’m talking Balenciaga S/S 2006 by Nicolas Ghesquière. It was such a gift to be able to do that assignment with her and was the first time we ever worked together. Then Vogue started putting us on assignments together. We even went to Hawaii and covered Jacquemus together. The thing I love about photography is that it’s a team exercise. Especially in fashion with editorial. There are so many people involved and I just love working with other people.
My first MET, Lady Gaga came and I’m a huge Gaga stan. Everyone who knows me intimately knows the love I have for this woman. The whole thing on the red carpet, getting to watch Anna watch that, getting to watch Lisa Love watch that, getting to watch everyone watch that happen. It was so cool. When she walked in, Brandon Maxwell came over to me and was like “Hunter, Gaga, it’s about time you two met.”
Every year has been amazing and it all kind of blends together at a certain point. I sometimes need to go back and look at the photos and remember the stories of how things happened. This year was really special, especially with Nicole Kidman being in that dress and I remember being 13 years old. When that commercial came out, drawing that dress and I told Nicole, “You’re in a dress that made me want to work in this business,” and she was like, “That's so lovely to hear.” It’s a night where everyone wants to be photographed, everyone looks amazing, and everyone is so nice.
RL: Do you photograph in your free time or do you only pick up the camera when the work is calling?
HA: I pick up a different camera when it's not work. I usually shoot film or with my iPhone. There was a point not long after my first MET in 2019 oh and after World Pride, I was feeling a little dead. I was working a lot and I just wasn’t in love with photography anymore. I was trying to shoot personal work, trying to use the gifts I’ve been given to capture the people I love the way I capture celebrities or something. Obviously much more intimately and I went to a camera store and bought a film camera, it’s a little point-and-shoot Contax. That changed the game for me. It was like now I have something that doesn’t feel like work that I can use for my work.
RL: What does the future look like for THE Hunter Abrams…
HA: I love what I’ve been doing and I hope that it continues. I would love to be able to do more personal work. I would love to have the time to figure out what my personal work looks like besides just capturing what’s around me.
RL: Maybe own a studio?
HA: I had a photo studio for a little bit and you know, I didn’t really use it as much as I thought I would. I think as much as I’m a people photographer. I’m also someone who likes to get out of the studio and into people's environments. Whether it's their homes or on the street with them or a restaurant that they feel comfortable in. I prefer shooting out of a studio. Also, I didn’t really go to school for photography so I’m not trained with studio lights. I hire assistants when I want to do stuff like that and my assistants and lighting directors are amazing, incredible people.
RL: Any advice you can give to someone out there in the world who might look up to you and your photography? How do they start? What are some easy steps to begin?
HA: Do your research, read as much as you can, and know everyone in the room before they know your name. If you know the last five years of Vogue Italia… look at the last fifteen, the last twenty. Go further back, dig as deep as you can, and look at as much as you can because those are the references we're going to be looking at for years and years and years. I know it costs twenty dollars a month to join Models.com, the pro edition. Sign up for a month then cancel it! Look at every single photographer that you’re into. Go back into their archive as far as you can. Use Pinterest, use the Fashion Spot, and use Youtube. Use Twitter, reach out to people. You have all these amazing tools at your disposal.