Joe Perri: Suddenly & Somehow Brighter
The photographer on couch surfing, Cuba, embracing colour, and his new book.
VANCOUVER — Joe Perri is in the yard when he answers my Zoom call.
“Is it okay if I do this outside?” he asks. It’s a warm day in Brooklyn and he wants to soak up as much sunlight as possible.
As a photographer, Joe has spent more than a decade chasing light. I first discovered his work through Maryland alt-rockers The Dangerous Summer, who trusted him to capture their most intimate moments while on tour. Since then he has become a near master of his craft, capturing high contrast and eminently colorful flicks of models (Stella Maxwell!), musicians (Kodak Black! Oneohtrix Point Never!), and athletes (Victoria Simmons! Usain Bolt!) for brands such as Nike, Levis, Atlantic Records, Dior X Saks, etc.
I tell him it’s no problem.
He smiles and takes a sip of coffee from a small mug. I’ll ask him about his ever-evolving process, couch surfing in northern Europe, the best light he’s ever found, his relationship with colour, and his new photo book, Suddenly & Somehow Brighter, which documents teenage life in Iceland.
But first (fittingly) we start with nature.
ES: I get the vibe that you’re a pretty outdoorsy cat.
JP: I love the outdoors. I spent six years out west in California, and it brought it out of me. Growing up in Florida my outdoor experience was basically the beach. The West Coast gave me access to things I hadn’t experienced and helped foster that love for nature and being outside.
ES: Are you going back and forth between California and New York at the moment? Or are you a New York resident?
JP: I’m a New Yorker at the moment. I’m bicoastal in the sense that I can be out there if work calls. But I’ve been here full-time for almost six years. It feels good. It feels long-term.
ES: Remind me: are you a self-taught photog?
JP: I’d call it self-taught. I took photography classes in high school. I learned the basics. They threw us in the darkroom and left us to figure it out. I really just liked that aspect. I’m a big process guy; I like involving myself in things that I can slowly etch at and try to understand deeper, that I can learn more about and improve at.
I tried to go to school for it, but it didn’t happen. It was 2008 and the market had crashed and I didn’t have the funds. That was the universe telling me that that wasn’t my trajectory. From there it was self-exploration, and figuring it out on my own. Trial and error. I started assisting and, going under the wing of people I admired, trying to be a sponge as long as possible. I still feel like I’m a sponge. It’s a never-ending journey of learning and giving yourself new ways of seeing.
ES: I was chatting with Mitchell Wojcik recently and he mentioned that he used to be a photo assistant for Casey Neistat. Have you had any brushes with greatness — maybe as an assistant or something — that aren’t on the record?
JP: I assisted more when I was in California. People like Madga Wosinska, Bryan Sheffield, and Hilary Walsh.
ES: But were your parents creative? Like are there working creatives in your life?
JP: Both of my parents were musicians. My dad managed a music store, and he’s been playing in the same band since I was a kid… And my mom is a singer. She never got to fulfill that as a career, but it was something she did on the side. Music and art were always around me, essentially.
But also support. Going after things that you were passionate about. My parents allowed me to explore photography and didn’t put boundaries or constraints on what my path was supposed to be, or what they saw for me. They let me find what gave me bliss and trusted that I would figure it out.
ES: I find your career trajectory fascinating. Like, you started in the Glamour Kills era of pop-punk, this sort of Warped Tour adjacent thing, and now you’re basically creating fine art. Can you connect the dots for people reading this? Do you see a commonality there?
JP: It all comes back to my desire to tell stories. In the earlier days, I fell into an environment and community that gave me the platform to figure that out and I took full advantage of it. Being on the road documenting bands as a fly on the wall gave me a chance to connect and identify with my way of seeing and what kind of point of view I enjoyed sharing. It gave me the confidence to move forward and explore other realms of work.
ES: I have these visceral memories of photos you took almost a decade ago. Like, there’s one of AJ Perdomo from The Dangerous Summer looking exhausted after some show. It’s sick. I remember most of that stuff was being shared on Tumblr.
JP: That’s awesome. Thinking back on all of that is so nostalgic for me. Those guys jump-started my career, they allowed me to come out with them and create and train my eye. Hone in on my approach and the way I’m seeing and storytelling. They were so open to being photographed, to being vulnerable, and to letting anything fly in front of the camera. I got to capture nuanced moments that not a lot of people see. We wanted to show these guys are humans… The joy, the pain, the the exhaustion, all the in-between moments. It was so much fun for me. And Tumblr was my scrapbook. It felt so much better than Instagram. Not doing anything for feedback or validation.
ES: Do you like touring? Or do you prefer taking photos in a controlled environment?
JP: The answer would differ at different times in my life. Overall, though, I would much rather be in the field. Any time I can be out in the world shooting, that’s my preference. I wouldn’t say the studio is a challenge, but it’s a different scenario for me to find my perspective. Finding a way to photograph things so they have that realness within a controlled environment. I enjoy both, but I’m a documentary photographer at heart. Tour was a dream for me. All these things were happening around me, without me having to arrange anything, and I just had to capture it. I don’t know if I could go back on tour right now, with everything that’s going on, but I would do a run with bands I admire just to have that endless canvas again.
ES: Who would you want to go on the road with?
JP: Oh man. At this point the dream is Radiohead. I’ve loved them for years, I’m a huge Thom Yorke fan. Everything he does, his style, his approach. The band’s whole energy and vibe is right up my alley.
ES: One thing that I like about your work is how much you’ve grown to embrace color. Your photos are so colorful and I have to imagine that’s deliberate.
JP: I consider myself a colour snob. Early on it wasn’t a factor that I put enough emphasis on, both in terms of the identity of my work, but also the storytelling. At first, it started with light for me. Light was what made my work feel like me. But shooting in certain lighting brought in this colour that I really connected to. Over time you consider these elements that hit you, and you try to create a structure for yourself so that you can bring them into every assignment or every project… Colour was what I was naturally drawn to, but then I wanted to sharpen that. It became this quest of capturing colour tones that made me feel good, A lot of that is in the post-processing, but if I’m using natural light, I have to consider what time of day I’m shooting. On the post-processing side, I had to think about how I was scanning or outputting my work, printing in the dark room, which elevated the realm of colour space I was working with. For a long time, I was searching for something that felt right. It’s exciting when you find it.
ES: I’m glad that you mentioned light because in some ways I think you almost treat light and colour as subjects as much as the people in the photo.
JP: Shit. Sometimes you don’t even realize those things until someone says it. I totally see light as a subject. It has so much narrative to me. The dance between light and atmosphere, whether the picture involves people or not, adds a certain feeling to the work. Same with colour. That’s what I’m looking for. Outside of what’s trending, what people are “liking.” It’s what I keep coming back to. It’s a worthy venture for me.
ES: Where is the best light you found so far?
JP: Iceland. 100%. For starters, it’s an island. And when you’re on an island, in the middle of the ocean, you’re dealt fast, varying weather conditions. People there say “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes,” and it’s true. Every five minutes, it’s sunny, it’s storming, it’s raining sideways, it’s snowy. It’s this crazy cycle and all these elements affect how light dances within the atmosphere. Then you think about the land itself: there’s a lot of dark, volcanic, rock and structures. The light plays with all that. It’s like no other place I’ve ever been.
ES: How long were you there for?
JP: I first went to Iceland in 2015. But it’s the center of this book that I’ve been making so I’ve been there eight times.
ES: And so let’s talk about the book.
JP: The book is kind of an exploration of teenage life in Iceland. It dives into a culture that I feel not a lot of people might be aware of. When most people think of Iceland they think of waterfalls, wild horses, and volcanoes. I hadn’t seen, nor knew much about the country’s culture. And so I dove into that. I met some kids on my first trip out there and we became friends. We had overlapping interests in skateboarding and we kept in touch. They opened up to me over time and shared their experiences. It was so different from Florida in terms of the atmosphere and the boundaries they live with, versus the boundaries I had. It felt important for me to dive into and it was something that I was going to learn from which is what I want when I’m doing personal projects.
ES: What’s one lesson you’re taking away from it?
JP: As much as I was looking for the differences, I found a lot of relation. Teenagers are teenagers, you know? They all go through similar things despite where they live… They just want to be with their friends. They choose their friends over anything. It brought me back to my teenage years, having these minor tensions in my life — school or family or whatever — and finding home with my friends and creating this little pact. Nothing else mattered.
ES: Were you in Reykjavik the whole time?
JP: Yeah. The first time I went there, I stayed with a couple that I met on this app called Couchsurfing.
ES: What a throwback!
JP: Exactly. This was 2015. I was backpacking for the first time, trying to meet people and do it cheaply. I met this couple on the app that agreed to host me. It was one of those things where you walk into a house of strangers and leave with lifelong friends. We just bonded and they became so close to me and invited me back anytime I wanted. If not for them, I would not have finished this project because it’s expensive to be out there. It’s island prices. But the work was all shot throughout the country’s southeast coast, in Reykjavik and the surrounding areas a couple of hours away.
ES: I don’t want to speak for you, but it seems like you’re a travel guy.
JP: My favorite thing is being somewhere new. I’m super stimulated by newness and unfamiliarity. That’s always where I start when I want to make new work. I put myself in unfamiliar atmospheres and let that pull me in, get me in tune with things. You can experience that here within the States, but going to another country and diving into a different culture, is the most exciting thing to me. I’ve made some of my favorite and best work from being in new countries, seeing things with fresh eyes, seeing life differently than someone who lives there might.
ES: What’s on your travel bucket list right now?
JP: Oh man. It’s tough because sometimes you leave places with unfinished business. You go for two weeks, spend half the time getting settled, and suddenly have to go. It’s like I’ve just scratched the surface. And so I feel like I’m at a crossroads. Do I revisit somewhere or go somewhere new?
I want to go back to Japan. My girlfriend and I have been talking about going there. She’s never been and I want to take her to experience it. Talk about stimulation. My first time there, it was like, Whoa. I was so enthralled by everything that I saw. Cuba is also always on my bucket list. That’s maybe the place I feel like I have the most unfinished business. I grew up in Miami and it’s close to home. I had some incredible connections when I went there.
ES: I love your photos from Cuba. They’re beautiful.
JP: Man, the energy. I think it’s from being so cut off from everything. It’s a lost presence. You walk around and nobody’s on their phone. Everyone’s in tune with what’s in front of them. The conversations that you have, the interactions that you have, they’re so real. No one’s thinking about anything else but who’s in front of them. It brought me back to a time when human connectivity was just a little different, you know? And the culture is affectionate and loving. It’s a special experience.
