With technology constantly being reinvented every second sometimes it’s hard to select the true photographers from the ones who have all the latest equipment to take a shot from being average to breathtaking. Morehouse graduate and Washingtonian Christopher Carr never had the latest technology and to this day hasn’t acquired the equipment he would like to get his vision behind, but his ability to catch the emotion and personality of celebrities, public figures and the like is an art that is slowly deteriorating do to the classic as Carr puts it, “artist caught with a beer in his hand backstage shot.” After losing his first camera to a flood in his apartment, his insurance company paid for his updated 35mm camera and ever since then he’s been catching people in the way of things from how they move and operate in today’s society.

Scheme: When did you pick up photography?

Christopher Carr: Well while I was in college I would pick up those disposable cameras, and while things were going on around campus I would try and capture the moments. It wasn’t until 2001 that my apartment flooded and I had and old 35mm syntax and all my stuff got completely destroyed. So one of the things my insurance company replaced was my camera, so I got a more updated 35mm camera. I went to Morehouse so at first I was only shooting flowers because the weather was nice year round. We would go to the botanical gardens and stuff like that. Once I finished there I moved to New York and as a graduate school at Columbia and I started shooting more cityscapes and started getting more into people and portraits. All of this was black and white at the time with an actual film camera and I did that for about two or three years. Then I took a photography class where we did all black and white and did our own printing, that’s when I really got into it and started doing fine art and I realized it was something I wanted to do, it was more than just a hobby. From then on I kept getting new equipment and I was trying to go farther with it.

Scheme: So what do you prefer, more black and white or color and why?

Christopher Carr: In the purest sense black and white film because you get so much clarity and just the science behind having to go develop the film yourself and then process it, it’s like a magical process as well as a science. It’s so involved you get clarity and you get great images that you wouldn’t with digital film but on the other hand I’m not in a class so I don’t have access to a dark room all the time and the cost of going to a print shop is so outrageous that when I started getting into color and digital I started to enjoy how you can bring out the vibrant colors. I can’t say I like one more than the other, they both have advantages.

Scheme: Was it before or after the flood that you decided you wanted to be a photographer and did that flood become one of the factors that lead you in that direction?

Christopher Carr: It definitely had an impact because my old camera was broken so I couldn’t really use it, by my apartment flooding I got a brand new camera that worked perfectly. I’m a musician as well so I had access to shows and events but it wasn’t until I got back to DC that one of my friends pushed me into shooting more fashion and portraits and people. For a long time I was nervous about shooting people because it never came out the way I saw them. It wasn’t until I got pushed that I fell in love with it. Growing up I was into drawing and painting but I could never make the image in my mind come out on paper. With photography I just used that as my artistic expression.

Scheme: When did you get exposed for your talents?

Christopher Carr: Probably around 2004 I started doing the fashion work and one of my friends is a fashion designer and she would call other photographers but she would make sure people would always call me and tell me to come and shoot. After that I was able to get into a gallery and we did this matrix gallery and that’s when I sold my first work, I was like alright this can actually work and it went for $250.00 and the art gallery got half of that but the principle of people actually purchasing this work I’m making and then friends started asking me to shoot album covers and inserts.

Scheme: What is your style when you go into a room with celebrities and public figures? Do you feel nervous, timid what is that process like?

Christopher Carr: For me I go in with an idea of what I want to shoot so I try to research the person and if I know certain things about him that I can bring out in the work so I shout a cover for Tuber Carlson for the Georgetowner and I kind of knew his background so I went in and lightly chatted it up and he was so cool that he was really easy to shoot. When I got the opportunity to photograph Diddy he was so chill that whatever nervousness I had immediately dissipated. For the most part I very rarely run into subjects that have an attitude or are hard to work with. There have been a few cases especially with the fashion thing because models want to look good so I’d be nervous because if I didn’t shoot them right they’re not going to look as good as they look in real life.

Scheme: Who are your favorites as far as shooting that you wouldn’t mind shooting again

Christopher Carr: Usually live events, I got to shoot a party in Philadelphia where Questlove was spinning and he was a great subject to photograph, he didn’t ham it up for the camera but he was cognizant that I was there. An oddly enough sometimes political figures are great subjects to photograph, I got to shoot Representative Conyers from Michigan and he’s such and animated person it was easy to capture his emotion. He was doing an interview about politics but you could see his passion for his work.

Scheme: Is there any difference between shooting a musician or a public figure?

Christopher Carr: Musicians tend to know a little bit more about how they want to present themselves and they tend to be a little bit more free-flowing. Politicians know they have a public figure to uphold so they want to be viewed in a serious manner. Even if they want to show their sense of humor they don’t want to do anything that will make them look bad in the public eye; where musicians have been photographed so many times that they want to do something new that people haven’t seen before.

Scheme: What does photography mean for you?

Christopher Carr: I look at photography as my way of being a journalist or a historian and I can document these people, events, things going on in the community and the aesthetic that is going on in the world at the time at which I’m here. I’m really into the idea of post-modernist theory in that there is so much technology in communication and the ability to transverse it through space. I want to address some of the social conflicts and address the inequalities in our world and try to reconcile them in a way. I had the chance to shoot this old guy while I was in Turkey and he was sitting in this corner bistro and you look at it and he’s in this impoverished community and he seems so happy, then I had the chance to photograph these people in Manhattan and they look mad and angry on their way to work. I like to let people see what people are doing in other parts of the world and other parts of the city and see what they’re doing. For me photography is my chance to illustrate the world around me, I want to tell the people’s story, even if it’s just fashion through what they are wearing and how they’re expressing themselves. If I wasn’t doing photography I’d be an historian, that’s what I went to school for.

Scheme: I was talking to a local photographer and she was saying sometimes the music will dictate how she shoots an individual or anything, how much does music play a role in how you shoot?

Christopher Carr: I think because of my involvement in music I’m also able to catch the rhythm of a person’s movement. So I catch them in time that would be difficult for me to understand if I didn’t understand music and rhythm. So whether I’m playing music during the shoot or I play it before hand to get me in the right zone it definitely has an influence. Even with live shows I shot this group called Dillinger Escape Clan and they are hardcore rock! They almost scared me one time coming off stage but I made sure to get that and not just get them backstage looking cool drinking a beer.

Scheme: Photography seems like it has the potential to be a cutthroat business, what has that experience been like for you?

Christopher Carr: I think you at certain times have to follow your pride and take jobs for free. I think you have to be a self starter, get out early in the morning and shoot for yourself. You have to become a business person, you have to learn how to do invoices, make sure you turn in all your paperwork on time so people pay you on time and if you don’t you’re able to communicate to them in a way where you don’t cause conflict but you get what you’re owed. It’s definitely cutthroat because there is another photographer who is willing to do the work if you’re not willing to do it. I think communication is a major aspect and something I’ve had to learn a lot about. People will tell you I want the shoot to look like this I’ve had to communicate with them with the type of lens I’m using and camera I’m using we can do this and creative problem solving is a huge element of it. You walk into a building and its like how’s the lighting set up and how’s the composition of the room going to work? It makes you become thick-skinned because people can be like I don’t like it, do it again and all you can do is say we’ll shoot until you get what you want.

Scheme: What would be your idea of the perfect shot or the perfect photograph?

Christopher Carr: The two or three shots that I like the most is that there’s action in the background but in the foreground. You can see the emotion on their face, their vibrant in terms of the colors. With music it doesn’t matter if everyone likes it, with photography it’s an aesthetic art, so whether it’s a landscape and you get the composition right and you get the ocean and the clouds rolling in and you get the beach and the people, its that little of oh wow the dog is running on the side. I don’t know if I have the perfect shot but in terms of concerts I don’t like the idea of the guy up there holding his crotch.

Scheme: So what is your ultimate scheme, where do you want to take your career?

Christopher Carr: I’m just now getting into magazine work, more art and layout and promotional material and so I enjoy the documentarian side of it but I also like the promotional the art the implementation of it. There’s always room for growth and I would like to work with other photographers and learn from other people.

Scheme: How much do you think technology will take place of the camera where it becomes less about the person behind the camera and more about the shot?

Christopher Carr: I think they all compliment each other, if you use a two megapixel camera the image is going to come out different from a 12 mega pixel camera. Your artistic vision can’t be bought or purchased and it’s something that you can refine and make better but that comes from the individual. I don’t have a $7,000 camera so I have to use my vision more but when I can afford that equipment I can pick up even more than what the person who has it in the beginning.