Andrew Boyle is an Australian-native, Brooklyn based photographer who has found himself in the depths of WWE World Wrestling Championships, the backstage frenzy of New York Fashion Week and star studded MET Gala, and the fogged lights from the front row of David Byrne and A Tribe Called Quest. I’m always in awe of the personalities he gets to meet and the clarity of character he draws out through his portraits. Every time we work together, I’m impressed by his ability to make the subject feel at ease and I resonate with his relentless quest to play and experiment, such as with our Signatures Campaign and in his recent zine and handmade animations for NOT.
TELL ME WHAT YOU DO AND HOW YOU GOT STARTED.
I'm a photographer. I picked up a camera in 11th grade after being inspired by the music photography of Anton Corbijn and BP Fallon. I cut my teeth shooting DJ / electronic music maker portraits and rave parties in the late 90s and early 2000s warehouse rave scene in Melbourne Australia. The goal was to use the access I had to learn about shooting personalities and the live experience, then to step into shooting bands, musicians and editorial portraits. During that time I was assisting and shooting small jobs in Melbourne, supplementing that with income from a local video store and retro movie theatre, before I moved to New York City in 2007 on a whim to see how far I could take things. I landed a job at Milk Studios working the equipment room for 2 years before I started assisting during the financial crisis fallout, not knowing if there'd be enough work. I then started shooting full time a couple of years ago for myself.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE THE MOST ABOUT YOUR WORK?
Collaborating with other creatives and having some freedom to develop my work towards a vision I have for it. It's a long process and a journey, and only now am I seeing all the influences I had in photo school and college resurfacing because I have developed an avenue to incorporate those aspects.
WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE MUSICIANS YOU'VE SHOT BEFORE?
I've had the pleasure of shooting some true legends that I admire like David Byrne, Mike D, Tribe Called Quest and newer icons like A$AP Rocky, Leon Bridges and J. Balvin, but I especially enjoyed working with Hayley Kiyoko from LA. We collaborated three times in the last year and she was just super open and fun, and it felt like we were just friends hanging out. That's rare in that so many music shoots have to be quick, so I really savor being able to get along with an artist. I especially admire her support of LGBTQ youth and the voice she provides for queer kids finding out who they are.
WHAT PROJECTS ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
It's always a mish-mash of jobs, but I put my foot down and culled my work on my website, print portfolio and social so that potential clients would see only what I want them to see, and that sort of work would flow from there. I base myself around the world of music, creatives, youth and pop culture shooting projects and editorial projects in those areas. I also mix up a lot of my work into handmade zines and collages which I have carried over into the motion world, creating moving collages.
CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE BACK AND FORTH PROCESS OF CREATING THE COLLAGES AND ANIMATIONS WITH NOT?
The back and forth aspect for me is due to so many ideas flowing into a series of collages at once. I'm 100% still learning at this point, so I'll hit a wall with what I want to do while editing a collage in Premiere Pro, and then realize the effect I want is much easier in After Effects, before finding that too tricky and realizing I might be able to just manipulate it in Photoshop. I've used Photoshop for such a long time that I've learned to bend it to what I want to do. But most often it's all an unplanned path; print images, cut them up, scan, take it through editing programs, reprint them, put them through stop motion process, realize I haven't got exactly what I need, repeat parts of the process, scrap it entirely and start again!
WHAT IS ONE OF YOUR "SECRET SPOTS" IN THE CITY?
I love 'Video Games New York' off the Bowery. I have a thing for retro video games and it's like a game museum and store all in one. They stock games and consoles from the 70s onwards, through to modern platforms. It's a ramshackle, tight, chaotic shop in an old original NYC store front. It's a place I always fear will get evicted due to rent hike and get demolished for a sterile glass box housing the latest organic juice fad or boutique gym. To me, NYC was the eclectic, haphazard streets of old buildings where you could find anything, the type of streets you'd see in Taxi Driver or Beastie Boys video clips.
WHAT PURCHASE OF $100 OR LESS HAS MOST IMPACTED YOUR LIFE RECENTLY?
I don't spend much on myself really, but I did take advantage of an Adobe promotion which gave me the entire creative suite for $29 meaning I could use a multitude of creative apps to improve my video collaging work. I know... kinda boring...
WHAT IS AN UNKNOWN TALENT YOU HAVE?
I'm really good at drawing cartoon characters and sketching in general. It was what I wanted to do before being a photographer. People close to me know I can do it, but I do it more in my spare time for myself.
IF YOU COULD BE OR DO ANYTHING ELSE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I'd make soundtracks. I really, really dig what Trent Reznor has done with Atticus Ross since branching out from Nine Inch Nails, and people like Angelo Badalamenti (he does most of the music for David Lynch) are on regular rotation when I work.
Explore Andrew Boyle x NOT zine and motion collage: https://www.notaligne.com/pages/mobile-studio
Discover Andrew Boyle x NOT menswear shoot: https://www.notaligne.com/pages/ss19
Andy is wearing NOT's Loop Placket Shirt Print.