Chuck Grant, Up Next: New York Times
Chuck Grant, Rising Photographer, Shoots for Kodak and Her Sister, Lana Del Rey
Chuck Grant, 29, is a photographer who often shoots pop stars, including her sister, Lana Del Rey.CreditJoyce Kim for The New York Times
By Neesha Arter
- April 24, 2017
Name Chuck Grant
Age 29
Hometown Lake Placid, N.Y.
Now Lives She splits her time between a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and a one-bedroom apartment in East Los Angeles.
Claim to Fame Ms. Grant is a rising young photographer who has found a niche shooting fashionable pop music stars, including her sister, who goes by the stage name Lana Del Rey. (Ms. Grant is officially Caroline but has been called Chuck her entire life.) Her first magazine cover came in 2015 when she photographed Charli XCX for Galore magazine. Later that year, she photographed the rapper YG for Fader Magazine. For Ms. Del Rey’s 2015 album “Honeymoon,” Ms. Grant photographed her on a Hollywood sightseeing bus. “I had a dream about shooting her in a StarLine tour bus, and a week later she called me saying she had rented a StarLine bus,” Ms. Grant said. “It was serendipitous.”
Big Break As a senior at Parsons School of Design majoring in photography, Ms. Grant submitted a series of portraits called “Alpha Females” for her thesis project, which followed the lives of the blogger Leandra Medine, Tina Flaherty, a businesswoman and philanthropist, and Ms. Del Rey. “I’ve always been attracted to strong female personalities and wanted to capture them in their natural environments,” Ms. Grant said. One of the judges was be Jody Quon, the photography director of New York magazine. Ms. Quon apparently liked the work, for after Ms. Grant graduated she sent her to Salt Lake City to photograph a community of Mormon women for the magazine. Ms. Grant has been shooting ever since.
Latest Project Kodak recently tapped Ms. Grant for a series of projects using its new Super 8 camera. She primarily shoots 120 film, and Kodak has been her brand of choice for almost 10 years. “I’ll be representing the brand, and I’m just trying to keep the love for film alive.”
Next Thing She hopes to publish her first photography book about she calls the modern-day myth of Persephone. “I’ve become more ingrained in the L.A. lifestyle, and have been documenting and exploring its gravitational moon energy, glamour and the darkness that consumes this city,” she said. “I plan to express that in this book.”
Sister Act Ms. Grant remains close to her sister, both personally and creatively. “We inspire each other to keep reaching for new artistic places to go, but we also remind each other of what our roots are in our individual crafts,” said Ms. Grant, who shot the cover art for Ms. Del Rey’s next album, “Lust for Life.”
