Ian Spanier Photography: Reportage

IAN SPANIER Photography

Represented by Big Leo Productions / mary@bigleo.com / 212.625.3861

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Born in Connecticut and raised in Westchester, New York, Ian Spanier has had a lifelong interest in photography — since age 6, to be specific, when his parents gave him his first camera: a Kodak Disc. For two decades after, Ian did everything he could not to become a photographer — yet he somehow always found himself with camera in hand, composing pictures and telling stories.

In college, Ian majored in art and psychology, and his first career aspiration was to work in sports medicine as

Who is this guy?

a trainer for a professional team. Even after he abandoned that plan in favor of photography, though, he spent much more of his time on the back end — as a

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magazine photo editor, assigning and organizing shoots rather than creating images himself. As the years passed, though, he found himself increasingly in the field and not behind a desk — and realized, however circuitously, that he had found his true calling after all.

These days, as comfortable hanging off the edge of a cliff as he is in the studio, Ian’s happy to go to just about any length to get the shot. He has long said that his brain doesn’t really have a “fear switch,” but there was always one exception: sharks. Not wanting to self-impose professional limitations, however, several years ago Ian took it upon himself to go to South Africa, submerge himself in a protective cage and go face-to-face with the Great White.

This episode seems to have cured him of his phobia — a result perhaps psychology-major Ian could have shed some light on back in college.

Ian lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons, and is available for assignments in New York, California . . . and anyplace else that’s accessible by plane, train, car, horse, dune buggy, bungee cord, camel or mule. If it can be reached by legs, hooves, hooks, wheels or wings, it’s fair game for an Ian Spanier shoot.

APPROACH

Let’s do this.

IAN SPANIER photography

Represented by Big Leo Productions / mary@bigleo.com / 212.625.3861

“No matter the subject, my approach is always guided by the story itself. I’m an ideas guy. I love collaborating with my clients to figure out the best solution for a given shoot. A big part of the job is fully understanding the end product: Is it magazine editorial? An advertisement?

Marketing? Social media? One will often spur a much different shoot than another, and photographers nowadays are often required to cover all those aspects in the same shoot. Flexibility is crucial.”

“My art and psychology double major inform the work I do today: creating images that tell a story. I come from an editorial background, and I love documentary style — so if I can tell a certain story before words are even introduced, I’ve done my job.”

I’m just a regular guy — even-keeled, here to solve problems. That, to me, is a photographer’s true role. I’ve got a big bag of tricks learned over years of working through everything: crazy weather, canceled flights, no more than two minutes to get the shot.

I’ve had to maintain composure as my subject, a ranger with the Drug Enforcement Administration, stood toe-to-toe with a Mexican gang member. I’ve directed U.S. Navy officers, telling them — with flights to Afghanistan departing all the while — where on the flight deck to move two $30 million planes so I could get a better shot. I’ve jumped off Mont Blanc on a paraglide and once photographed a woman with one of her pet wolves as another wolf circled behind me.”

The Work.

Represented by Big Leo Productions / mary@bigleo.com / 212.625.3861

Represented by Big Leo Productions / mary@bigleo.com / 212.625.3861

Represented by Big Leo Productions / mary@bigleo.com / 212.625.3861

BOOM.