BRIAN WECHT OF NINJA SEX PARTY FOR WSJ

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Last week I had the pleasure of leaving the house other than for groceries or alcohol to photograph Brian Wecht of Ninja Sex Party for WSJ. Shooting during this pandemic has obviously created a lot of new obstacles, limitations and opportunities for growth. With that said, we were limited to only shoot in Brian’s backyard which wasn’t ideal, but we made it work (although he had a great little studio space I wanted to shoot in, but for safety reasons we couldn’t). But I gotta say, I’m becoming a fan of AstroTurf, don’t judge me.

If you don’t know, Brian was a theoretical physicist professor at MIT who had left his tenured professorship to pursue his music as half the duo Ninja Sex Party. With the story being about transitions, Ronnie at WSJ asked for us to have options of him in and out of character. At the end of the day, he feels like he made the right choice.

I knew I wanted something tight on Ninja Brian’s face to show the intensity that he brings to the stage. It’s the same that he gives if he sees someone not wearing a mask in public.

JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT CAMP SURVIVORS - NEW PERSONAL PROJECT

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At the end of December 2018 I started working on a new project documenting the survivors of Executive Order 9066. This is when the American government locked up over 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent after the attacks on Pearl Harbor during WWII. In these past few months, I’ve sat with several of these people as they have shared their stories with me, and I’m very excited to share them with you. As part of this project I’ve asked all that are participating to write about their experiences in the camps and how that shaped their sense of belonging and identifying themselves within a journal that I have especially for this project.

Last month I had the pleasure of photographing Paul Imahara at the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Downtown LA. Paul was 3 when he and his family were evacuated from their home and forced into the camp. For him, he doesn’t recall as much as some of the others I’ve worked with on this project being he was so young. When we shot, he spoke more to me about Buddhism and what it means to him. He has been a Buddhist Minister for quite sometime. I’m looking forward to sitting down with him again soon to see what he adds to the journal.

Here are a couple of images from this shoot.

Keep an eye out for more stories and images to follow. You can always see what I’m up to via Instagram as well at @matthewscottgranger

HBO'S NOHO HANK, ANTHONY CARRIGAN FOR OBSERVER

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A couple of weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of photographing up and coming star, Anthony Carrigan for Observer. If you’re a fan of HBO’s “Barry” you may recognize him as NoHo Hank. Anthony has such an amazing presence about him when he walks into a room which made my job all that much easier on that brisk May morning.

For our first set up, we were staged up in his PR’s office (which was small so we were gonna be tight). We put up a 3’ gridded octa to camera left and here is what we got.

For a seamless option, we decided to set up in the driveway so we could all stretch our legs a little bit…Same set up as indoors, 3’ gridded octa, this time to camera right. We were blessed to have such an overcast day that it provided a beautiful flat fill. And the results!

JILL ANDERSON FOR WSJ

A few weeks ago I got a call from The Wall Street Journal asking if I’d like to photograph Jill Anderson, the former CEO of Cianna Medical who had just sold her company to JP Morgan Chase for the tune of $2oo+ Million.

When we showed up, a big part of her family were there and everyone was wonderful and very hospitable. As we scouted the grounds, I noticed a lot of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” posters in the guest house. I asked her stepson who was walking us around if they were big fans of the show, he then told me his brother was an actor/writer on the series…Turns out she is Rob McElhenney’s stepmother. Rob as you may know plays Mac on the show and his brother was the one giving us the tour. That right there made my day, but lets continue.

We found several beautiful locations that worked well for the shoot. Since we had multiple locations and limited time, the lighting had to be easy to move, so we went with a 60” Phototek Softlighter.

And the result.