Some of America’s most influential music groups come from abroad. A band’s first American tour sets the stage for their international success - pun intended. In her latest collaboration with Billboard Magazine, Alexandra Gavillet was one of the first American photographers to shoot the K-Pop artists, Blackpink, during their debut tour of the US. A female photographer shooting an all-female South Korean girl group during their first tour of the US is a moment that America has not seen many times before. “Music is my number one inspiration and I primarily listen to music that is made outside of the US. This project was really exciting for me because it’s something I chat about all the time - how incredible the music scene is internationally and how important it is to work with, listen to and support international talent," explains Alexandra on why this project was a great fit. "Blackpink is so major, they're huge superstars. To have the opportunity to photograph their first US cover was major. I just felt so proud because it's so important that American media is more supportive of international artists, so this felt like a really meaningful first step for the k-pop community. I was so grateful to be a part of that.” Although it was their first trip to the US, the girls had little time to sit back and relax. The girl group kicked off their stay with a performance at the Universal Music Group’s annual showcase and made morning and late-night appearances on primetime television talk shows,  including Late Night with Stephen Colbert. The girls looked soft during their photo shoot with Alexandra at Smashbox Studios, accentuating the vibrant fashions and fantastical sets showcased in each photo. The band members stretched out on velvet couches in front of luxurious backdrops featuring green and fuschia hues of satin and fur and posed in a lilac room with whispy bunches of florals floating mid-air around the singers. In addition to the cover image of all four band members laying in a sea of luxurious neon pink fabrics beneath a plethora of different floral arrangements, Billboard Magazine produced four covers featuring a portrait of each of the stars from their photoshoot with Alexandra. Billboard even produced a commemorative collector’s box set with all five covers and full-size posters of Alexandra’s images. Blackpink brought their A game to set for Alexandra, ready to show face and announce to America that the group, in fact, has arrived.  

In the age of book to movie phenomenons comes a graphic novel to television show that stands out from the rest. The live action TV show, Deadly Class, is based on the graphic novels of the same name. The plot focuses on a teen named Marcus who is recruited into a private Dark Arts academy where he and his peers are trained to be assassins. In the series' first major nod back to its original form, Deadly Class creator tapped Polyester, animation and production studio, to create a piece that combines different styles and dimensions to bring Marcus’s acid trip sequence to life. “Originally the show creator, Rick Remender came to us based on a spot we did called “Memento Mori” and it involved jumping through four to seven different styles from 3D to 2D. He wanted to do something similar for the acid trip sequence that he had in the show which was amazing because we assumed that internal, promotional spot we did was kind of not commercially applicable in any way shape or form. But it’s an excellent starting point for where we ended up on Deadly Class,” explains founder of the studio, Jeremy Dimmock, laughing. “We broke down the script into eight different styles, eight different sections, so it allowed us to put together a mood board for each of the sections. We did style frames for those sections to determine what the look was going to be. As we went forward, some sections would be 2D, 3D, and Cel Animation so each one had its own unique look and feel. We wanted to start out very happy, like the trip is going really well and then it kind of hits a dark point where it goes into Marcus’s history and then it starts getting really dark. It gets super dark because of his past and his history intertwining so, it also references what’s going to happen in in future seasons subtly. There’s definitely that climax where it goes dark.” When the show creator originally approached the studio for the project, the show hadn’t launched yet, so the team had ample time to execute their vision. Robyn Smale, the producer on the project, revealed that there was most definitely a “hunger for creative awesomeness” throughout the layers of the project. The studio got to working on the spot well before the show started production, and continued working and making changes once filming began. There were a lot of changes we had to keep up with based on what the live-action director was doing.” The opening sequence was changed a number of times, switching out characters in the car in each cut. “Everything started with the script breakdown. When we broke it down into eight different scenes, we researched different styles. Each scene also had its own unique color palette and it became a road map for establishing the look as we jumped into creating production art and style frames. We actually wanted to establish a consistent palette but they insisted that each scene is as separate as possible. So we made sure that we broke up the 3D so you can see the distinct styles and distinct techniques that we used,” Jeremy explained, before giving a disclaimer that he was about to get animated (pun intended). “Then we broke it down. Scene 1 was done 3D Maya and was rendered in Redshift, modeling in Zbrush, surface texture and substance design. Scenes 2 and 3 used ToonBoom Cel animation, where the rest of the scenes go on to feature 3-4D, painted textures frame by frame, Adobe Animate, Flash and Photoshop with everything finally being comped in After Effects.” Although exclusively created for the television series, the two-minute acid trip sequence stands on it’s own. The spot transports the viewer into a world of visual pleasure, using different styles to evoke emotion and colors that elevate those abstract depictions. The episode featuring the acid trip premiered on SYFY in February, but the excitement has yet to die down, with the network’s Youtube clip having more than ten thousand views. As for Polyester, they’re excited about the future. “Fortunately, their ratings continue to get better so hopefully we’ll be talking about doing something for Season 2 soon.”

The rapid development of technology has raised many questions about how creativity will evolve alongside it. David Carson’s collaborative exhibition, “Mind Over Matter,” with Thjis Biersteker, showcases that technology can help push the limits of how art is experienced and the influence it has on the viewer. The concept began with the artists' mutual desire to create art that has a real impact on the world. The project evolved through an emotionally-driven creative process to draw into question modern paradigms in society such as the practice of mindfulness, the visualization of emotions, group dynamics, and peer surveillance. The partnership began while David was doing an artist residency program at the Zeoku Hotel in Amsterdam. Given David’s well-known background as a professional surfer, Thjis was in charge of showing David the beach. Thjis explained his background in tech-driven art and expressed his eagerness to collaborate on a piece with David. Their process started with the desire to clean up pollution. They began by collecting trash from around Amsterdam that David later used to create collages. Thjis, using his technological-art background, connected digital copies of the pieces David designed to a headset capable of reading brain-waves. Through this technology, the visuals were programmed to reflect the mood of the people using the headsets. Once they had tested and fine-tuned their installation, they invited a small group to experience the piece in action. When David and Thjis saw how people interacted with their piece, they realized that the scope of the project had become much larger than they had anticipated. People in the exhibit begin to be mindful and actively exercise control their thoughts. The experience was so unique that the team could not ignore the power it was having over the viewer.  “[It is] just something [else] to see your mind get calm,” David explained, “you feel it but you don’t often see it. If somebody would enter the room, and one person started doing something different, that affected it. I think we just kind of touched the surface but there’s something really interesting there. An obvious [application] would be meditation and self-calming. What was also interesting [was] that there were some people there that started reading the other people there like: ‘woah, you’re in a dark place.’ Or, ‘wow, that person is really calm.’ Or, ‘what the heck is going on in there?’”. The reality that David and Thjis did not know how their project would be interpreted before they put it in action was not a problem for David. Rather, he views it as an exciting marriage between human experience and technology, as well as a testament to the power of emotional art. The strength of David’s personal belief in the power of an emotionally driven creative process is evident. The most engaging challenge of this project was how to create a collage that conveys the spectrum of emotions people might feel while interacting with the piece. To do this, he experimented. He asked himself if the visuals he created evoked the emotions the headset was programmed to associate with them. These questions are particularly compelling to David because evoking emotion has always been the goal of his creative process. Unlike professionally trained designers who learn to abide by a certain set of rules for good design, David emphasizes that he is self-trained. Therefore, he instead constantly asks himself: “‘what’s the emotion I’m trying to get from this piece?’. I want people to feel the work and react emotionally.” He explained that is why working on this piece came naturally, “it was very much the way I like to work [with] emotional reaction to visual things.” A return to an emotional process in design is more relevant now than ever. In David’s eyes, the design world has arguably become more homogeneous as technology has developed. However, this is not to say that technology cannot be used to create emotional design. “That’s where the best work comes from–your unique vision and way of seeing things and nobody can copy that. Everybody can buy the same software and do reasonable websites but as we get more technically driven, it’s more important than ever that you get personally involved in the work. That’s when you do your best work and have the most fun doing it,” David believes. “That’s the only way you can do something unique because nobody is you; no one has your background, your upbringing, your family life. You can’t put all of that, but you can put degrees of it and then you have the chance to actually get some unique fresh work. If you’re not doing that then you’re probably bored with the work and you’re probably doing very safe, fine, forgettable work–professional but ultimately forgettable.” This strong belief in the importance of keeping emotion as the driving force of creativity in an increasingly digital world is why the highlight of the “Mind Over Matter” show for David was watching the emotional reactions of people as depicted by his collages. The importance of prioritizing authenticity remains particularly significant to David who holds this value central to his craft. David is not alone in this desire, and when he really works through a process driven by emotional authenticity that is when he gets the best response. “Where you can tell there’s a human behind it people are really reacting again, gravitating towards that, and it’s really noticeable… people are hungry for something that’s authentic and to feel there’s a person behind it…  I’ve been aware that there’s movement [in support of authenticity] again and that’s a good thing… things are shifting.” Although the next phase of their collaboration is on hold because David and Thjis are in pursuit of different projects, the possibilities of where they may take the theme of the connection between emotion, image, and technology are broad. Although the team is not yet sure what the next phase will be, they would love to continue. Themes of self-awareness, couples’ therapy, peer surveillance, and emotional authenticity in a technologically-driven world are some ideas they have of ways this technology could be used to help make a real difference in the world – the main goal of their collaboration.

Tara Donne is no stranger to travel. The seasoned photographer and motion director is known for photographing the finer things that make up a lifestyle: food, travel, family, and fun. In her latest project with Travel & Leisure, Tara takes her talents to the Adirondack Mountains to capture all it has to offer, from the rustic cabin scene to the luxurious lakeside resorts. The Adirondacks has a special place in Tara’s heart. Having spent her early years near the mountain range at school in Syracuse, Tara was already keen on all the natural beauty the area has to offer. “I feel like people don’t know about the Adirondacks. There’s a bunch of different things I love about it. It’s just totally my vibe up there, big trees, big mountains. I’ve been there at a bunch of different times of year – in the winter with friends, renting houses and just enjoying the nature and snow around Lake Placid. I always really love it. There’s great hiking and a lot of outdoorsy activities. But I’d always look and look and I could never find really cool places to stay. In a way, it was sort of lovely and refreshing because there was nothing trendy -  there’s not a million pre-curated instagrammable things. It’s just really beautiful,  natural and raw. As an aesthetic person that feeling was always both underwhelming but in the same way a little bit refreshing.” It feels fated that Tara, who at a time craved more intentional beauty from the unchartered Adirondacks, was selected as the photographer for a multi-night adventure in different luxury accommodations, dubbed Adult Dream Camp. Tara and the editorial team of Travel + Leisure stayed in a plethora of hotels throughout the Adirondacks for the Adult Dream Camp journey that each had their own unique feel. From affordable cabins deep in the mountains to properties along Lake George, to finally one of Rockefeller’s properties turned luxury resort, the photographer had no shortage of picture-perfect moments throughout her stay on the four-day shoot. Tara’s favorite stay, “hands down”, was The Point, which she refers to as the highlight of her trip. “It’s a really nice and beautiful property, but everything feels like authentically from when it was built - in the early 1930s. It has that Adirondack cabin feel but with a luxe twist. But it’s not like they did this cheesy over the top renovation that feels inauthentic to what the Rockefeller property originally was. It feels like you kind of get to go back in time,” explains Tara. “Before I arrived, they asked if I had dietary restrictions. I said yes, I can’t eat gluten, so when I arrived there was a plate of fresh baked gluten-free cookies. They make you feel taken care of. It’s also not so posh because you’re still in nature. You can take the boats out and go swimming and hiking. You can totally unplug. There were even top-shelf bars that you could just help yourself, set up in five different places.” Tara took those cues and made herself at home, going as far as to make a fire in the fireplace that was pre-stationed in her room to photograph and capture the full luxury of the moment. Although The Point made Tara feel more than comfortable, the other areas of the Adirondacks evoked more familiar feelings of nostalgia, fulfillment, and family that Tara showcased in her images. “I think the range of accommodations that were part of this story was perfect for what I thought were the most exciting, interesting, beautiful, authentic to the place kind of summery moments and things that happened at each spot. The Sagamore is a beautiful island that’s in Lake George and it has all this coastline that’s so beautiful to enjoy and it has all these tubes and kids in the lake. It feels like a family place,” Tara notes, referencing the outtakes of images of children and families wading in the lake and walking along the lake with their tubes. “I think a lot of the inspiration was wanting to tell a story. When you’re shooting a travel story, it has so much to offer and there’s so much about it that makes it a wonderful experience. I just felt like I wanted to spend more time there, not just because I wanted too, but because I wanted more time to photograph everything that happened there. It was such a good place to just shoot an inclusive story from food to things there growing the garden to the people who work there. I wanted to capture that.”

Virgil Abloh’s legacy precedes him. The founder of fashion brand Off-White, is known for blending the lines between streetwear and luxury. The creative started his career supporting some of Kanye’s endeavors before venturing off on his own, experimenting with brands like Pyrex and finally finding firm footing that has reshaped how the world separates different aspects of the industry. In his latest project with GQ Style, photographer Pari Dukovic shadowed fashion’s brightest star, designer and creative director Virgil Abloh, through his most recent runway debut for Louis Vuitton. With this unique portfolio for GQ, Pari had the opportunity to join Virgil on his tour of Men’s Fashion Week. He traveled to Paris to shoot the designer as he opened his first show as the men’s artistic director for Louis Vuitton in June of 2018. Pari photographed that intimate moment between Virgil and the man with whom he launched his career, Kanye West. The image of the creative director embracing his mentor isn’t the only moment the photographer was able to capture. Pari documented the runway show in its vibrant entirety, from the designer bags sitting idly backstage to the models walking the looks down the runway. Pari was also invited to the after party, where Virgil quickly switched hats and jumped onto the turntables to DJ. The designer’s signature style has influenced more than just fashion. His academic background is in both architecture and engineering, which he regularly references in his work. Virgil is credited with fundamentally changing the way the world views creative directors, expanding his craft to include his roles as DJ, architect, author, and entrepreneur. GQ opened their article, which detailed different accounts and perspectives of Virgil’s success, with a welcome for readers to the “Abloh Era." Pari captures those moments that document his most exciting journey – so far.

For the past decade, superhero movies have broken records and topped the box office charts. Marvel’s Universe is home to the big screen’s most beloved superheroes, including Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and most recently, their first leading female superhero: Captain Marvel. The Universe paved the way for this progressive addition to its franchise earlier in 2018 with the debut of their first African American superhero, Black Panther. In his latest collaboration with Marvel, photographer to the superheroes, Michael Muller, shot the movie posters featuring the super woman for her own movie debut. Michael is no stranger to shooting superheroes on set, and he sees each of his Marvel shoots as their own unique experience. His shoot with the cast of Captain Marvel was extra special. “The process is always a little different…” explains Michael on shooting characters from Marvel’s Universe. “When you do the Marvel superhero movie posters, you have these big casts of 12 Avengers, and sometimes up to 20 or 30 actors. Capturing each unique suit also makes it interesting. But I think the main, unique and cool aspect with this particular shoot was the fact that Brie Larson, the lead, is a female. And without going into too much of the story, a female that is going to save the world." With each Marvel movie franchise comes a different set of superheroes, each with their unique set of skills and powers. During the two days of shooting with Michael, Captain Marvel’s powers stood out. “All the superheroes always have different powers, but Brie’s character sort of has all of their powers - one of which is flying,” Michael reveals, delving into some of the behind the scenes work that isn't shown in the final images. “It was cool to use Brie in harnesses. We use harnesses, and the stunt team comes in and we actually fly the talent. So she flew, without ropes… because she’s a superhero." With ten years on the job, Michael knows how to capture and inspire the strength that boldly shines in each superhero shoot. “I’ll direct the way they stand, how they position their body, where they’re looking, and especially the angles I shoot them from. The angles and the lighting make it the whole combination – the superhero recipe, with the actors adding their character to it. This is her first superhero film, but it’s interesting to watch the actors, as the sequels develop, watch the characters perform their craft. After 10 years doing this, I try to direct the new superheroes as much as possible.” When asked about whether one of the shoots stands out as his favorite, Michael admits that it’s too hard to choose. “There are no favorites because they all have sentimental value, you know what I mean? I enjoy all my shoots…but I would say, the one that’s got a lot of sentimental value would be Iron Man 1 because it was the first one I shot. I remember Robert Downey Jr. showed me the sketches, and how excited he was. And then the studio called. I did two weeks on that shoot, I did hyper unit where we go and shoot the actors on set as well. My assistants have portable strobe lights, and that’s when I have access to all the sets. When I do hyper unit it’s amazing. I love to get those shots on camera because we have the backdrops right there. The actors are in costume, in uniform, all that good stuff. That one has a lot of sentimental value, but you know my favorite I would say is “Captain America 2”. I think it had the coolest costumes and uniforms. Those costumes, that style; they were just amazing." Through all of his superhero experience, Michael keeps one simple goal in mind. “With a movie poster you know, there’s 1.4 seconds to stop someone in a magazine or stop them on Amsterdam. You got one shot to make people say to themselves in their car like, “that looks cool,” or “that looks dumb”. The way you look at a movie billboard can really affect the box office. And that’s my job, to make them look cool. I know the comic book fans are going to come to the movie. My goal is to get my wife into the movie theatre. To get the people that are not the superhero or comic book people into the theater, into the seats."