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The photographer David Suh offers solutions to some of contemporary life’s conundrums. “Do you ever want to post a thirst trap but don’t want it to be too thirst trappy?” he asked a few months ago on Instagram, where he has nearly two million followers. Reveal a shoulder. Posing with a man who’s shorter than you? “Have your short king wear heels,” he said on TikTok. “If he doesn’t want to, leave him.” What if you’re a man who wants to post a casual thirst trap? “Pose with B.D.E.,” he said—“bold, dynamic, effortless” energy—by, say, wearing a blazer without a shirt and pretending to read a magazine by candlelight. “Less is more.”
The other day, Suh, who is twenty-nine, was standing in the reception area of his atelier, on the east side of Los Angeles—natural light, nude-hued pampas—where he does high-end photo shoots for regular people. Hopeful subjects can schedule a free thirty-minute consultation before booking a session that yields up to two dozen finished photographs. It’s like Sears Portrait Studio, except that a session costs eight thousand dollars. (Prints are extra.) “It’s five to six hours,” Suh said. “And it includes professional hair and makeup.” Not everybody makes the cut. “We consider people we can actually serve, people who say, ‘I want to navigate through my identity because there are parts of me that I haven’t explored,’ versus ‘I just want a pretty picture to post.’ ”
Often, the latter “happen to be celebrities and influencers,” Suh said. “What they’re looking for is so public-facing. There are so many better photographers to do that.” (Exceptions occur: last year, he said, he had an hour to shoot “personal branding photos” for Instagram’s C.E.O., Adam Mosseri, who arrived with a security detail. “It was terrifying,” Suh said.)
His latest subject, Lily TranCat, a twenty-four-year-old financial analyst from Chicago, was waiting in a back room. Suh strode in wearing a beige polo shirt, black pleated pants, and patent-leather shoes. He asked if TranCat had found him on social media.
“Well, I don’t have social media,” TranCat said.
“You don’t have social media,” Suh said. Mind blown. What would become of the day’s output?
“They’re just for me,” she said. “I want to look at them at my coffee table whenever I’m feeling down, or if I need inspiration.”
TranCat walked Suh through the clothes she’d brought: denim jumpsuit (“casual, comfortable,” she said), purple suit, white eyelet dress (“relaxed, twirlable”).
“If this is twirlable, what is this?” Suh said. He picked up the hem of a pale-pink taffeta gown.
“Extremely twirlable,” TranCat said.
Suh excused himself to plan the shoot with his studio manager, Maria Kristina Lander. They made notes, then Googled “suit badass portraits.” They decided to start with the denim jumpsuit. “Sometimes a client will be, like, ‘I want to do that blazer look without anything underneath,’ ” Suh said. “That’s really cool. That’s a look we do a lot. But we need to warm up first.”
Backdrops were unfurled; TranCat emerged from the makeup chair pink-cheeked and long-lashed. “We’re going to interpretive-dance,” Suh announced. “I’m going to be like a mirror.” He reached out his right arm; TranCat followed. He reached out his left arm; she followed. He flipped up his palms. They were doing the Macarena. She grinned. “There we go,” Suh said. “Perfect!”
Hands were placed in pockets, feet were angled, hips and shoulders were jutted out. Suh’s shutter clicked. “You’re going to do what I call basking in the sun,” Suh said, as TranCat draped herself across an Adirondack chair and tilted her head back. “Close your eyes because the sun is so bright. Yes, queen!”
Denim jumpsuit off, extremely twirlable gown on. Suh directed TranCat to swish. A hair-and-makeup artist named Jasmine Min waved a piece of cardboard (a minor breeze), then rustled the hem of the gown as if a subway-grate gust had puffed it up. “Throw that hem,” Suh said. “Throw more! O.K., arm workout!” He continued, “Yes, queen! Can you actually jump this time?” TranCat laughed. “Basking in the sun, big bask,” Suh said. “And, scene!”
Another costume change. Min and Suh moved a backdrop, revealing a wall hung with a framed portrait: Suh, bare-chested, white cape billowing, head tilted against the sun, eyes closed. A big bask, indeed.
“This is my 2023 vision board,” Suh explained. “At the end of 2022, I said, ‘Who do I want to be at the end of next year?’ ”
Asked how the process was going, he said, “Right now, I’m in the trenches.” ♦
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