Nick Fancher 3/30/21 Nick Fancher 3/30/21

Evanescence: The Bitter Truth Photo Shoot

Back in November I drove down to Nashville to photograph @amylee for her upcoming @evanescenceofficial album, The Bitter Truth. I set up a makeshift studio in her dining room and knocked out a broad range of images for the album art, various magazine spreads, and images for streaming platforms…

Nick Fancher 3/26/21 Nick Fancher 3/26/21

Tryzdin Grubbs (American Idol contestant) Photo Shoot

Tryzdin Grubbs is an uber-talented, 15-year old singer from Columbus. He also just happened to get accepted onto the latest season of American Idol. Before the episode had even aired, Tryzdin popped by my studio for a photo shoot. This was our third shoot in as many years and this one was the most dynamic yet. We’ve both grown quite a bit in our respective crafts and so it was cool to see what new things we were bringing to the shoot, from a personal and professional standpoint. Here are just a few of the different looks that we knocked out in the brief but efficient, one-hour shoot.

Nick Fancher 3/18/21 Nick Fancher 3/18/21

From the Archives: Underoath, Erase Me Photoshoot (Behind the Scenes)

In January of 2018 I met up with the fellas from Underoath in Los Angeles to shoot photos for their yet-to-be-released album, Erase Me. My friends at Tension Division were designing the album and merch and basically every facet of the upcoming album cycle. Not only did I need to shoot individual photos of each member using several different in-camera techniques such as multiple exposure, shutter drag, and projector for the album art, but I also needed to shoot promo photos for Spotify and images for an upcoming issue of Alternative Press. The shot list was aggressive for a one-day shoot but I had the added challenge of shooting all this in the living room of an Airbnb while Brandon, the creative director, was remotely directing everything from their home in Ohio. It was a tall order but I was up for it…

Nick Fancher 3/15/21 Nick Fancher 3/15/21

Kind of Blue: Exploring Black Masculinity with Khalil

Khalil and I had been planning this shoot for the better part of a year. He reached out to me last June and said he had an idea for a shoot that he wanted to explore. He knew that he wanted to use chains in the images as well as explore themes of black masculinity. When he arrived at my studio one morning last month and began to lay out the chains that he brought with him, I immediately recognized that we’d need much more to really make the images work. I suggested that we make a quick run to the hardware store, and he agreed. We ended up leaving the store with every inch of chain that they had…

Nick Fancher 3/8/21 Nick Fancher 3/8/21

Behind the Scenes Photo Shoot with Ronnie Radke of Falling in Reverse

Last month I photographed Ronnie Radke of Falling in Reverse at his home in LA. I set up a makeshift studio in his dining room and we knocked out six scenarios in just under three hours…

Nick Fancher 3/2/21 Nick Fancher 3/2/21

Trauma Survivor Portraits with Sanctuary Night

Nick Fancher 2/28/21 Nick Fancher 2/28/21

Remote Shoot with Marissa Nadler

Nick Fancher 2/25/21 Nick Fancher 2/25/21

This is Water

For decades I’ve adored 4AD album art from the 80s and 90s. The genius team behind the photography and design was Nigel Grierson and Vaughan Oliver, who operated under the name 23 Envelope. They were responsible for iconic album art of This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, The Pixies, and many more. Over the years I’ve tried over and over again to mimic some of the effects that I saw used in their photography, but my experiments always came up short. Much to my delight, my latest photographic exploration is the closest to their aesthetic, by far…

Nick Fancher 2/22/21 Nick Fancher 2/22/21

Fancher X Feinknopf

Last week I had the privilege of photographing photographers. Great ones, at that. Brad Feinknopf is a legend in my neck of the woods, and to be asked to photograph him and his team in my style was a great honor.

Nick Fancher 2/19/21 Nick Fancher 2/19/21

Cyberpunk Flapper Girl and Other Photographic Mashups

It’s a rare occasion when I do a team collaboration on a personal shoot. I typically prefer to work directly with the model, having them bring their own wardrobe and arrive with their hair and makeup already done. It not only saves time and is easier to coordinate but I also love the challenge of coming up with a cohesive theme for the shoot, basing my techniques, lighting, and color palette on the items that they brought with them. That said, when I do get to work with a great team such as this, I can see how the images really elevate…

Nick Fancher 2/16/21 Nick Fancher 2/16/21

Color and Shape Collab with Larry Robertson

Larry Robertson is a clothing designer, stylist, poet, and many other things. Everytime we collaborate we walk away with fire. He came by my studio yesterday and brought with him a bunch of outfits. We vacillated between shooting and chatting, discussing life, creativity, and navigating the ever-changing world…

Nick Fancher 2/10/21 Nick Fancher 2/10/21

Playing with Bold Colors and Silhouettes

This was a fun, quick little color study with Erin Hurt, who did her own hair, makeup, and wardrobe styling. I wanted to focus on color and silhouette, so I had her select items with interesting shapes, like suit jacket or an A-line dress…

Nick Fancher 2/5/21 Nick Fancher 2/5/21

Exquisite Geometry

This was my first time working with Amber. In preparation for the shoot I told her the same thing I tell all of my models: bring 4-6 different outfit options and have hair and makeup ready when they arrive. Once she arrived we looked through the items that she brought and decided a direction for the shoot based on what we had to work with. I love the improvisational element in test shoots. It can really take my shoots in new directions. It makes me wonder if this is what it feels like tobe a jazz musician, going in loose and riffing off the other collaborators…

Nick Fancher 1/28/21 Nick Fancher 1/28/21

Collaboration with Sustainable Fashion Designer Malvar = Stewart

Celeste Malvar-Stewart is a fashion designer that specializes in using locally-sourced, sustainable materials in the garments she makes. I’ve collaborated with Celeste several times over the years and the thing that I especially love about our shoots is how open she is with the way I interpret her garments. She simply hands me a garment bag filled with delicate treasures and tells me to style and shoot them however I please. I am someone who thrives in situations like this— just improvising and figuring it out as I go. The more I plan ahead, the more anxious I get at all the possible points of failure. If you don’t have a concrete plan you can’t be held responsible if you deviate from it…

Nick Fancher 1/22/21 Nick Fancher 1/22/21

How to Create Practical Effects in Photographs without Photoshop

Lately I’ve been exploring different ways to manipulate my images after the fact. Since I’m not great at Photoshop creating realistic effects in Photoshop and don’t like the absence of “happy accidents” when working on a digital file, I prefer to print the images and then physically modifying them. So far I’ve explored crumpling prints, poking holes in them, submerging them in water, and lighting them from below before re-shooting them…

Nick Fancher 1/21/21 Nick Fancher 1/21/21

The Great American Road Trip

A couple weeks ago I booked a shoot in Los Angeles but given the extremely high numbers of covid cases I decided to avoid the airports and turn it into a road trip. Though I had made a similar cross-country trip twenty years ago with a friend, this time it was a solo trip through a country in lockdown. It was more than a little unnerving to stop off to fuel up at the only town within 50 miles only to find that every gas station, restaurant, and hotel is closed. I couldn’t help but think about books and films depicting a post-apocalyptic country where one could go days without human contact. That said, the beautiful diversity of landscape hit me especially hard; the mountains, deserts, and the kitsch making me more grateful than ever for this country…

Nick Fancher 1/15/21 Nick Fancher 1/15/21

34 West Theater Co. 2021 Season

This was my 11th season working with 34 West Theater, who are based in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Over the years we’ve grown be be good friends and I always look forward to seeing what we create together. What I love about them is their willingness to improvise. Though I suppose that’s an element that most actors celebrate, it’s not always the case that I’m given such a broad range of creative freedom in a shoot. They always come to the shoot with a broad range of outfits, props, and some general ideas for where they’d like the images to go, but they ultimately leave it up to me to transform their ideas into images that they’ll use for promoting their upcoming shows…

Nick Fancher 1/11/21 Nick Fancher 1/11/21

Plants and Plastic with Chyna

I’ve collaborated with Chyna a dozen times now, and we’ve since become friends. She recently came by the studio and we chatted about work, life, and plants, among other things. I had recently propagated one of my plants by splitting it into two pots, one of which I gave to her. Before she left I asked if she would want to do an impromptu shoot with her new green friend. After snapping a few frames with the plant I convinced her to let me shoot some colorful long exposure images…

Nick Fancher 1/7/21 Nick Fancher 1/7/21

The Unmasking: Shoot, Print, Shoot

Last week I shot had a brief session with @mundermonster. I shot for about five minutes, capturing a range of poses. Then I took a break to import the images, select a favorite, and print it out on an office inkjet printer. Then the shoot resumed and I directed Mary in using the print as a prop. I really love this as a visual metaphor for the perceived self…

Nick Fancher 12/29/20 Nick Fancher 12/29/20

The Thin Red Line

I met Maya several years ago when I was shooting her senior fashion show collection at CCAD. When she me post some images from my trauma series she reached out and asked to participate...