Justin Passmore

Every so often I get these bulletins from model agencies announcing someone new that they  have signed and it was through one of these that I saw Justin Passmore. Justin's look is very distinctive and immediately brings to mind Patrick Petitjean. Like Petitjean with the long hair and full beard Justin is the opposite of either the boyish or muscled look that seems to be the current "in" look with male models. And it was this difference that I found inspiring about Justin, so I called Dave Fothergill at Red Model Management and arranged a test. Dave is incredibly supportive of my work and is always willing to provide talent for my testing. Without his help my work would not be what it is. Justin is a new find, Dave found him working in a store in New York City and a few weeks later signed him with Red. So when I saw him he had no pictures yet. By the time we did our shoot last Friday (April 30, 2011), he'd already been photographed for Esquire and a few other publications as well as being up for a few retail campaigns, his career seems to be developing rapidly! 
I knew with Justin I wanted to revisit the idea of working in a place rather than in a white or black space and also something more raw feeling. Studio F at 3rd Ward, an artists facility in Brooklyn where I do much of my work offered the solution. One thing that I wanted to do was to work with daylight only and no lighting other than reflectors and studio F is perfect for this. It has these huge old windows with these panes that are either so old and weather beaten or frosted that the light that comes through is nicely diffuse. The room also faces a direction where that side of the building doesn't get a lot of direct sunlight, which further enhances the diffuse quality of the light. 
Next was to get the right styling and this is where David Hayden comes in, I collaborate with Hayden frequently and I knew intuitively that he would be the right choice for this. For hair and make up I brought in Veronika Rebova, who I worked with one time before and liked very much, she has a good eye and make up sense and I thought this would be a good shoot for her. Even in a shoot like this, where the look and feel is to be very natural you still need make up, skin blemishes need to be toned down or hidden or features may need a little emphasizing yet it all needs to look real, and a good make up artist is essential. Of course good skin on the part of the model makes things a whole lot easier and Justin luckily has excellent skin.

Dave at Red had told me that he'd been getting good reports about Justin as a talent to work with and he is excellent. Justin is a natural, that's the only way I can really describe him. For someone who has not been modeling that long, he seems to just "get it" and he required no coaching from me. An extremely pleasant personality the whole shoot had a really nice, relaxed vibe to it and it just flowed along, Justin doing a great job of relating to the surroundings, the wardrobe and creating the right feel through his expression and body language. All in all we came away with a great shoot that we all are very excited with and here are a few samples.