The One in Which Thomas Prior Blows my Mind

This is Thomas Prior. On the left, 18, the right– 28. This in itself tells a pretty nice story, and stories are something Prior is apparently exc...

This is Thomas Prior. On the left, 18, the right– 28. This in itself tells a pretty nice story, and stories are something Prior is apparently exceedingly good at. He sent over his blog this morning and I’ve been completely mesmerized ever since.

I’m not sure if I know Thomas’ work or not. I think I’ve seen this shot before. It’s an object on fire, so obviously it’s my kind of thing. His portfolio is pretty strong.

His bio:

“Tom is 28 years old and lives in Brooklyn. He
graduated from School of Visual Arts in 2002 with a BFA. He currently
assists and prints for fashion photographer Luis Sanchis who lets him
shoot behind the scenes photos and travel to kick ass places around the
world.”

Luis Sanchis! I adore Luis Sanchis. Which is a rarity for me among fashion photographers.

Anyway, the blog… the blog is amazing. I know there are a proliferation of these situations out there today, and every photographer’s gotta have one, rah rah rah. But Prior makes the most of his.

He takes incredible, lyrical shots from his everyday life, and behind-the-scenes stuff on shoots with Luis, and updates us on his own projects and progress. You really must check it out. There’s tons of stuff to see.

Also I went a little nuts and reproduced some stuff below. All the words are Prior’s.

July 4th

Some firework photos from Friday. All exposures were made between .5
and 8 seconds using boulders and a water bottle for my tripod.

Dubai. On the first day we had a 4am call time. Shot from the car on our way to the desert.

The weather in Dubai is incredibly humid making the air super misty. Construction crews work 24/7 and light up the night.

This was around midnight on the beach in front of our hotel. We
wrangled up some floodlights from the gardening crew and lit the sand
and water behind. Took us a long time to get it right cause most of the
extension cords weren’t working and we were all pretty tired.

Andrea on a Luis shoot at a Bay Ridge motel last week.

My mailbox at 7:30 yesterday morning.

California Salt Mine. Photo from an Italian Elle shoot a few months back.

(Luis Sanchis in red)

We had to wade in on the second day. Your feet would get salty and pants would dry into a rocky shell.

Hung
out at the view by Alan’s house last weekend. Perfect temperature and
amazing soft light. Handheld this 1/20 sec at f1.2 and the big version
is actually pretty sharp!

Nick and I went home to visit Ma. We made the annual trip to the filthy
OTB in Suffern, NY. We all made losing bets on the Derby.

She gets super stoked watching the race. There was a female horse
(rare) that came in second then broke its ankles. Some men killed it on
the track. She wasn’t too happy about that.

Male model waiting.

Shot designer Yigal Azrouel
for Nylon Guys a couple months back. I’m not going to bother posting
the tear sheet cause they printed the photo 3 inches tall…bummer…Here’s the one they picked to use.

…and the one I wanted.

Broke down and bought an Epson 3800 today! I got so much new shit I
want to print. 6 times faster than my old beast and I can make 16x20s
now at home.