Let’s talk about the quarantine lookbook you shot of yourself, what was your original idea for the lookbook? How did it change and what are some of the challenges in making that?
Man, before any Corona stuff happened, I was thinking that I should go to the streets, shoot just ill street shit, you know? But after the Corona thing, I thought maybe I’ll just shoot one of my homies, or a few of my homies, in their quarantine space. I could just pull up to their house, give them a shirt, they could rock a few things and then I’d shoot these different people in their environments, from the less rich homies to some of the more wealthy homies. Not that it would get that crazy, but just showing how they’re living. And then when I was walking around shooting some stuff like that, I felt socially irresponsible just by people looking at me. I felt like I was being judged. I didn’t want to shoot anything outside, having fun, when no one’s going to be outside having fun.

So, then I was like, “Damn, I should just shoot myself in the crib, being quarantined, doing things that I would actually do.” I’ve been playing video games, sleeping, painting and DJing. The hardest part about the whole thing was shooting it on film. I shot it digitally with a Sony a7R IV. And then the film thing is tricky because it gets super technical with these big ass film cameras; I’m using manual joints. I shot the lookbook with a Mamiya Rz67, which is one of my favorite cameras–I shoot a ton with it–with a fisheye lens. I have this little auto-timer, so I have to crank the timer, set up all the shit, measure the light, you know, pre-focus it, and then I start the timer. And I just shoot hella shots.

This was literally my biggest challenge ever. I’m very happy with how everything came out because, man, I developed the film myself. I’ve been developing my own film now for about, eight months? Nine months? Maybe a year? Shit. So, just having the confidence to do all that, having all the tools at home, when all the film shops are closed? You literally learn all these skills and I feel like when you have a chance to display all of them it’s like, why not? Why not?! I’m built for this. I learned all this stuff just in case I was like, in Egypt shooting film and if I wanted to show you guys the film from Egypt, now I could just develop it inside the hotel. It was definitely the most challenging thing I’ve ever done with photos.

Your cart

Your cart is empty