Lana Shaw’s favourite time to take someone’s photograph is when they are at their worst. “I want to capture people when they’re going through a difficult moment to remind them of all they are not just their beauty, but their power and identity,” the LA-based photographer says. To illustrate what she means by that, she takes out her phone and pulls up an image of a friend. He’s standing topless in a doorway, hands in the pockets of his black jeans, a Stetson hat on his head, his wide eyes directed downwards. There’s romance to the shot, despite his palpable sadness. “That was right after a bad breakup, when he’d really lost sight of himself.”
Lana points to another image, of a friend gazing into an empty fish tank, their reflection gazing back at them. It’s as if they are looking but not really seeing. “That person is trans now and their head is buzz[ed], and that photo, that reflection, was taken at a moment when they were searching for something, figuring themselves out,” she says. “I think photography can be an amazing mirror in that way.”
Lana is a photographer, creative director and graphic designer, but she’s also every bit an LA girl: “It’s a small town, it’s a hometown.” She talks in profundities and understands the world better behind the lens. The daughter of two architects, she was “nurtured by aesthetic principles” since childhood, letting her Barbies play in her parents’ models. Aged 31, her formative cultural diet also consisted of original indie sleaze and MTV music videos – an influence still visible in her portraits of emerging artists, actors and musicians.
But her true watermark, Lana says, is infusing her images with emotion. “As much as I get jaded about social media, I’m actually really grateful for it. Because of constant content, because we disassociate so easily, it makes me work harder,” she explains. “I want to stop you with my images, and make you think and make you feel because as much as we’re exposed to all this imagery, we’re not exposed to feeling.”
Lana credits this impulse to four years spent working as a creative at American Apparel, having joined the company in 2012 at the age of 20. When asked about her experience there, she smiles, then sighs. “I’ve always wondered when I’d have to get into it. Especially as a woman, I’m mindful when speaking about it because I don’t want to discredit people’s experiences. I am very well aware of what happened at that company, but I had a different experience than the controversy,” she says, referring to the multiple allegations of sexual harassment brought against its CEO Dov Charney.
What I will say is that it was an incredible education,” she continues. “It’s where I learnt the balance between flop and sensation. American Apparel had a way of making an image that made you stop and sit with it for a minute. There was a layer of connection; you feel the subject’s feelings, you feel like you’re in the room with them.” She pauses. “It also taught me perversion is in the eye of the beholder.”
But in featuring semi-nude young women with their legs spread beneath Helvetica-typed innuendos, or voyeuristic upskirt-style shots in ‘Back to School’ collections, was American Apparel’s marketing strategy not purposefully provocative and hypersexualised?
“There’s an interesting thing about branding disseminating across channels. The billboards, for instance, were in a certain world, and married with Dov’s actions, it became public perception of the brand,” she contends. “As a result, even non-sexual images – girls fully clothed in sweaters and jeans – became seen through that lens. I also think American Apparel ads were compared to pornography more than the rest of fashions ads that had even more blatant nudity because they felt real. It felt like real people, and it was real people. No supermodels, just people.”
The legacy of that intimate point-and-shoot style and homemade flavour of American Apparel’s campaigns can be felt in Lana’s images today. She photographs a friend half-dressed, leaning against a fridge sucking on a spoon of ice cream; another blowing foam in a bubble bath. “In American culture, we equate sex to intimacy, but I think it can be one of the least intimate things we do. These images are about the things that are so much more intimate,” she says. “The ritual of coming home alone after a night out, and stripping yourself of all the things you do to perform for the world. Or vibing with yourself in a bath tub.”
Lana also enjoys playing with archive aesthetics. There’s the poster series she made during lockdown, a reaction against the “NFT hype” of the time, which draws from 70s Playboy and 80s Hustler: “I really tried to deconstruct the lighting and angles they use. I wanted them to feel like 80s bar porno posters, but through a feminine gaze, with a modern touch, you know?”
As far as the current Gen Z-led indie sleaze revival goes, she’s watching closely, but is sceptical. “I’m aware that much of indie sleaze could not exist in a contemporary context, given how we’ve progressed as a society,” she muses. “And it’s interesting to see if these social media trends that have weight and relevance online ever crossover into real life.”
Even so, the music videos Lana directs are rich with nostalgia for the mid-aughts. A recent video for LA-based alt-rock band Silversun Pickups was inspired by “the skate videos they grew up with”, and evokes the experience of chasing a memory: “It goes forward and backwards and spits you out where you started, with a little skater humour,” she explains.
Lana’s relationship to these trends mirrors her attitude towards the changing landscape of LA. “Sometimes capturing indie sleaze feels like a conversation with my past self – from being young in a career and excited, to looking back with all this experience and insight, while anticipating a future you’re not too sure of,” she reflects. “Same with watching this city change. In some ways, it almost becomes a meditation, of wanting to hold onto the past and wanting to embrace all the new it could be.”
Emerging from “one of those cycles in which the weight of the world presses down on you and it’s hard to create”, now, Lana is excited to start her own projects again, but has no concrete plans. “When I work for companies, I’m really good at making projections. But with myself, I’m just taking shots in the dark,” she admits.
Whatever it is, she’s sure to do it with feeling.
To see more of Lana Shaw’s work, follow her Instagram and check out her website.
Credits
All images courtesy Lana Shaw