Patricio Suarez – Desiree Film Scans (2015)

The list of photographers whose work I’ll unreservedly endorse is short. Today, it got one photographer longer: Patricio Suarez.

I’m not even sure where to start. I mean, the quality of the work speaks for itself.

My customary fetish for extreme quality takes a back seat here next to how strongly these images resonate with me. It’s totally knee jerk, but the compositional logic is more than a little reminiscent of Mark Romanek–and that’s not a reference I toss around lightly.

As someone who came to photography via cinematography, there’s a tendency in my experience for photographers to treat locations as more of aesthetic enhancement or simple back drop than a facet in a holistic image.

Thus, what really blows me right the fuck a-fucking-way is the way Suarez creates portraits anchored in the relationship between person and personal occupancy of space–location informs character, character informs location.

(It’s not at all surprising that Suarez’s day job is a commercial director of photography.)

His images of Nettie Harris are jaw dropping in their Nettie-ness. Short of ericashires, no one shoots Johanna Stickland in so unmediated and present-in-the-moment a manner. And Kelsey Dylan… bring my smelling salts because I’m feeling faint…

All-around fucking fantastic.