Rangefinder Magazine
April 2005

Click Here for printable version of this article.

Introducing Reed Young by Caresse Muir
From Brooks Institute

Reed grew up in Minneapolis where he lived until he was 19. At age 10, he was introduced to the world of film by a neighbor who was volunteering at the local cable access channel producing his own TV show. Despite Reed’s youth at the time and the initial reluctance of the cable channel staff, he successfully persuaded them to certify him to use their equipment—as long as he promised to produce shows for the channel. He checked out equipment every single day but never produced a single show. He experimented with the equipment, hauling it everywhere he went, shooting everything under the sun, living and breathing. He viewed this as the opportunity of a lifetime, and it was this experience that sparked his interest in the visual arts. Despite Reed’s never producing a show, the cable people quickly observed his raw talent and gave him a lot of encouragement.

When Reed was a senior in high school, he applied for and was accepted at the Perpich Center for Arts Education, a highly competitive arts high school in Minneapolis. The school’s media department accepted him, and he enrolled in his first photography class. A fellow student told Reed about Santa Barbara and the community college there, so after graduation they both moved west to attend Santa Barbara Community College. Well before the first semester ended, Reed realized it wasn’t the school for him. Since his heart was in a career in photography, he enrolled in the Brooks Institute of Photography in January 2002. The decision was tough because Reed knew he would need to take out student loans in excess of $80,000 to study what he loved. But after agonizing over the decision for months, he decided enrolling at Brooks was the right choice. As people say: If you do something you love, you never work a day in your life.

Reed is in the advertising programs at Brooks. He says of his experience at Brooks: “It’s an amazing program. The first year is very technical (which I believe is a good thing), and after that, students are basically given the freedom to develop a style of their own. My mentor, Bill Robbins, taught my favorite class, and it focused on incorporating layout designs with advertising photography.” Reed will graduate in February 2005 and plans to move to New York to assist other great photographers while building his own client base. He has always had a fascination with big cities, especially New York, having visited the city on five occasions when his mother went there on business. Reed is excited about his move to the city because he’s finding it challenging to market himself there while living in California.

Reed does most of his photography with his trusty Mamiya RZ67. His digital camera of choice is the Canon 1DS. Reed prefers shooting film to digital right now because he feels he has more creative control. “I’ve also found that when I shoot digitally, I lose my subject’s attention while I’m constantly checking the LCD,” he says. However, he does prefer shooting digitally when working on his night shoots.

Some of Reed’s favorite photographers who have influenced his work are Gregory Crewdson, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Nick Knight and Glen Luchford. What he likes about each of these photographers is the depth—conceptually and visually— of their work. Reed explains, “I like how Helmut Newton always pushed politically correct boundaries. Going against the unwritten rules is a tough decision, and he successfully preserved a good reputation while creating innovative work.

Gregory Crewdson creates amazing work that has an amazing production value. Peter Lindbergh creates amazing black-and-white work, and I find this much harder to accomplish than creating nice color work. With black and white, the focus is more on composition and contrast between the subjects than the deceiving beautiful color. Steven Meisel has the most amazing advertising work I’ve ever seen. Glen Luchford shoots a lot in low light, and I really like his style.”

In describing his own personal style of photography, Reed says, “Location fashion with a cinematic look to it.” What inspires him? Reed says, “My family, friends, dreams, big cities, cinematography and the comedy of unexpected truth.” Until two years ago, Reed only took photos of flowers and landscapes. He still loves good landscape photography and tries to incorporate it into his fashion work. Currently he is spending time photographing people at night, and it is his new fascination. He is putting together a portfolio of night-only work and hopes to commission clients for this type of work.

Reed was recently hired to do a fashion editorial for the magazine called Metro.Pop. The editor of the magazine had seen some of Reed’s images, which he had shot with color infrared film. She liked the red color of them and asked him to shoot a 12-page spread with the same look. He had only eight days to get the assignment to the magazine editor, so he had to work quickly. Reed says that color infrared film is difficult to shoot because it leaves no room for any errors in exposure. The wavelength of infrared hits the film plane differently than the visible spectrum of light does. He used a yellow filter and bracketed his focus on each shot. The images are very unique and can be seen on Reed’s web site.

About recent changes in photography, Reed says, “Many of my colleagues disagree with me, but I find it (digital) a very useful tool that just makes everybody’s work look better. It raises the competition level, but I find this exciting and interesting. I also love the fact that everything is viewable over the internet now. My web site has been a huge marketing tool for me. I’ve gotten several exciting projects as a result of it.”

Reed feels the most important thing he does as a photographer is storytelling. “I think being a photographer is a powerful thing. It’s used in so many different mediums and really conveys an image of lifestyle and shows what’s going on in the world. Whether it’s journalistic or not doesn’t really matter.”

Reed believes photography is a difficult business to get into. As he says, “It requires a lot of discipline and hard work, but I wouldn’t trade my photography education for anything.” When asked what his dream job would be, Reed responds, “Shooting the Dolce and Gabbana ad campaign.” With Reed’s talent, creativity and ambition, this dream may well come true for him someday. You can see samples of Reed’s work on his web site www.reedyoung.com/.

Caresse Muir began her home-based business seven years ago, specializing in family, high school senior and children’s portraits. Four years ago she began photographing weddings and is a member of WPPI who frequently enters print competition.