“Sometimes, my models couldn’t sit for me and when that woul;d happen, I would take pictures of them so that I could paint from the pictures,” says photographer Kareem Black to the Phoblographer in an interview. He started out as a painter and made his work from live models. “Eventually the pictures got to be more fun and the gratification more immediate. This is when I fell in love with photography.” He applied to SVA and studied photography until he got his BFA in 1999. Lucky for him, he graduated into the dot com economy. That means that some of his first clients were Fader, Source, Vibe, and record labels.
All images by Kareem Black. Used with permission. Please check out his website and follow him on Instagram @kareemblack.
Kareem and I met while we were both hired to photograph Rib King NYC, and I immediately realized how friendly he was. Like so many other photographers, he didn’t have a competitive edge to him and instead just believed in all of us being who we are. It’s rare to see that.
He isn’t big on tech, and he believes that most cameras these days are virtually identical when it comes to image quality. He’s right, of course, and we’ve seen that in many of our tests. “You can’t tell if a billboard was shot on a Sony or a Nikon,” Kareem states. He shot on the various Canon 5D iterations for many years but then switched to the Sony A7r III—a camera I still use. He also uses Profoto lights.
“If anyone from Profoto is listening, I’m ready to be sponsored!” he says.
His work has been on Billboards, Instagram campaigns, etc. And so he admits that the work goes through Photoshop. However, he states that his work is as close to real life as possible, and he doesn’t try to make photo illustrations. In fact, he very clearly understands that line.
To get his looks, Kareem works to maintain a drama-free zone. He works to ensure everyone has a good time and make it a safe space. In fact, he calls this his secret because when folks feel like they’re not being judged, they’re very comfortable. “I think it also helps that I am not a cool person,” Kareem tells us, to our surprise. “So, I’m not trying to impress you with how cool I am, we will hopefully avoid that awkwardness of trying to ‘out cool” each other.”
This humble nature wins him the images he needs — and he’s worked with various big celebrities and companies throughout his career. And like any photographer worth their creativity, he’s a big dreamer. and that’s an understatement. Here’s what he said when we asked him about what he’d shoot if he had unlimited creative freedom.
This is a HUGE question… I would love to meet and photograph Alexander the Great. He’s a fascinating character in world history. He was a true sociopathic megalomaniacal artist. I’d also love to photograph Captain James T. Kirk preferably on the bridge of his ship the Enterprise NCC 1701-A. I’d love to do a shoot with Maralyn Monroe and Marilyn Manson. That duo would be so interesting together on camera! I’d want to photograph them on a night out in Tokyo or something. Lots of Neon and Blade runner vibes !
Kareem Black
In the way of dreams, he steadfastly believes in authenticity. To that end, he thinks that AI is a tagline and a gimmick these days. He hasn’t seen an intelligence with AI just yet — nor creation, inspiration, or new ideas.
“What we consider A.I. seems to be based on super fast calculation while remixing things from the internet,” Kareem says, while stating that it can be wildly impressive such as with the Generative fill feautre in Photoshop. “It does have access to the sum of human knowledge after all. I think that humans as a species are in HUGE trouble when A.I. starts to exhibit independent thought or new thought or morality or begins to create completely new things.”
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
As part of the Content Authenticity Initiative, The Phoblographer works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.