LP
LP: The Power of the Ask
The road to this session was anything but linear. Years before we finally met, a friend told me there was a magical singer named LP I had to photograph at a festival. This was the very beginning of my career, and we actually tried reaching out on MySpace to see if they would respond. LP never did.
A handful of years later, my then-agent mentioned that Warner Brothers wanted me to write a treatment for a music video for that same artist. What are the odds of the this?
I poured everything into it and waited, only to find out I had landed in a disappointing second place. I remember feeling the sting of that “almost” for a year, never imagining that a nonsensical Salt Lake City to Phoenix to Los Angeles layover while directing for HP would change the story.
I spotted a familiar silhouette a few rows ahead of me on the flight. When we touched down in LA, I didn’t just walk off the plane. I chased the opportunity. In a move I will blame entirely on being an Aries, the first thing out of my mouth wasn’t a standard greeting. I caught up to her and said, “hey you’re LP!” – then I asked them point-blank why I wasn’t hired to direct their music video. It was a bold and perhaps slightly unprofessional confrontation, but it was honest.
Instead of being taken aback, LP was disarmed. She/they asked for my name and looked at my work right there in the terminal walking to baggage. LP loved the portfolio and asked if we could plan a photo shoot together. These images are the product of that spontaneous and high-stakes collision.
It is a reminder that sometimes a missed message or a second-place finish is just a setup for a one-on-one collaboration that no agency could have ever scripted.
Talent: LP
Photographer: Walid Azami
Hair/Glam: Kristen Hetland
Producer: Matthew Harshbarger
Photographed in Lincoln Heights, CA.