Corey Anderson is a photographer from St. Joseph, MO.
He has been photographing nature landscapes since 2021. More recently, in July, he started photographing not only bands and musicians in the local music scene but also audience members in a candid nature. This lens allows for the subjects to be captured in a manner of honesty, reality, and beauty found in the moments that may go overlooked but are not any less significant and meaningful.
Corey Anderson hopes to capture the simple honesty of life through his portraits.
Corey Anderson’s art can be viewed at:
Facebook: Corey Anderson Photography
Corey Anderson Portrait by Andy Rivera at Rivera Studios
I interviewed Corey last week about how he got into photography, his influences, and goals:
LP: How did you get into photography?
Corey Anderson: Well, honestly as corny as it may sound, I’ve always had an interest in photography, but I think everything boils back to being a kid at family events, especially Christmas and watching my aunts just go crazy with a point-and-shoot camera that they had. And after going with my aunt to Walmart or one-hour-photos and getting the pictures developed. Then looking at the negatives - and always wondering how the negatives went from that state to a picture into a 4-by-6 image. That has always struck me as something fascinating that I wanted to figure out.
LP: Whenever you take photos at gigs, do you use traditional film cameras or do you use a digital camera? Do you use a specific type of camera?
Corey: The goal in life would be to be able to do everything permanently on film. But I currently shoot on a mirrorless, digital camera. It’s a Canon RP. It’s a pretty good entry-level camera. I love it. It’s what has gotten me to where I am now. It makes for a phenomenal camera.
For photography, I’ve been learning that it’s not really about the gear. It’s more about the eye and the style, like someone with an iPhone could be an amazing photographer. It’s more down to the eye and understanding lighting and composition.
LP: Who are your influences? Are you inspired by any specific photographers?
Corey: Honestly, my influences come from movies. Roger Deakins is my favorite cinematographer of all time, and he’s actually the person that made me look at movies beyond the spectator. Like how they got certain things on screen, how the shot was framed, how they used film and color-corrected stuff. Roger Deakins is the forefront of that.
The movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, directed by Andrew Dominik – is the movie that made me look at everything completely differently.
I don’t have any traditional photographer influences. But there was a guy named Ryan Russell who was heavily in the emo scene in the early 2000s. I wouldn’t say he was an emo person or an emo photographer; he mostly took photos of the band that I loved at the time - like Paramore, Taking Back Sunday, Death Cab for Cutie. Ryan Russell made me look at everything like, “Oh, there’s someone out there who has a pulse on current culture” in the sense of how I perceived it.
Most of my current influences are YouTube photographers, actually. They are part of the reason why I got back into everything. Like Brae Hunziker, Bryan Birks – he’s from St. Louis and he’s the reason I use Portra 160 filmstock because he makes it look beautiful. His videos are super honest and technical. He has kind of become a pseudo-teacher to me.
Those two are my main influences right now, but I also have friends in town, like Patrick Throckmorton. He’s the person who is the catalyst of everything for me.
LP: What’s your favorite thing about photography?
Corey: At the end of the day, there are so many different styles of photography with so many different approaches. Everyone has their own visions.
For me, I love the simple honesty, especially with portraits. I love candid moments that are not meant to be seen or only going to be seen by me. And then posting a version of someone that they never thought they would see of themselves in such an honest, real light is so rewarding because you can’t beat that with the honesty in it and of how human photography is.
LP: As a photographer, what is your ultimate goal - in the sense that you can look back and say, ‘Wow, I’ve made it!’ Like, do you want to have your own studio?
Corey: My ultimate goal as a photographer is to be self-sufficient and successful, uncompromising in my own visions and standards – even if that means being paid by a client to shoot something for them, I still want them to pay me for my interpretation of said thing.
At the end of the day, I love the idea of providing a service to someone that has never really thought it would be an option for them. I think it goes back to the idea of the humanity in photography and the intimacy, like giving people something that they can look back on whether it be just a portrait or a wedding or whatever the event is, and they can say, “Damn, I look fucking great here. I absolutely love how I look here.”
I would love to be self-sufficient with my own studio and have people come to me and say, “I want to see how I look through your eyes.”
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