Joel Brandwein

Born in the United States, Joel began photographing an international assortment of readily "available" subjects while he was living in Milan and Paris working as a model in his late teens.Joel has always seen the primary role of the photographer as being quite similar to that of a good film director. He must build a rapport between himself and his subject so that truly great moments of essential beauty can be captured forever on film.

Joel is self-taught; in fact, he considers some of his best work to be from the earliest period in his shooting, when he had no idea how a camera really worked. He says that he would simply set his old Cannon AE-1 to "auto" and use his eye to compose the scenes that he wanted to see on film. He rarely crops an image after shooting it. He makes each frame complete on film in his camera. His work is also distinguished by the fact that he does all of the hair, make-up and styling. In his words, Its another way to simplify the atmosphere and remove unnecessary distractions.,