Beautiful Thinker: Lindsay Adler, fashion photographer, on starting a business at 15, redefining femininity, and the symbolism of the color red.
By: Carolyn Hadlock
Tags: Fashion Photography, New York City, Photographer, Beautiful Thinkers, Photography

That must’ve made you a really interesting student for your teachers.

I was probably super annoying.

You mentioned your mom was a photographer as well. Did her influence push you in that direction?

It was a lot of people in my family. My mom was a hobbyist photographer. My aunt was a hobbyist photographer. My grandmother was a hobbyist photographer, and my grandma remembers her father when she was a kid having a dark room. It was kind of a way to spend time with the family. I grew up in rural upstate New York, and I remember at 12, maybe even younger, we would wander around the family farm and take pictures of mushrooms and whatever was in front of me. I remember this one hike that we took. We went up this old dirt path, and my aunt would be photographing a fern and I’m photographing a mushroom. And then my grandma would be photographing the whole scene. Each one of us is looking and discovering something different around us.

So, it started off as a way to spend time with the women in my family. Photography was close to my heart, and it just instantly felt meant to be.

Tell me about when you decided to pursue fashion photography.

When I went to college, I went out of my way to ask a ton of professional photographers what I should study in college. And pretty much a hundred percent of them said, study business and don’t do photography. Their argument made perfect sense. You can learn the craft of photography, but the reason that most people fail and don’t make it is because they don’t understand the business side. So, I did both things.

“When I think of beautiful lighting, I feel like I actually glow a little bit. It’s hard to explain.”

And in my third year of college, I took a class that was an elective. It wasn’t exactly studying the history of fashion photography. There was a teacher who loved fashion photography. He loved vintage photography and he basically just wanted to talk about what he loved. As I was looking at the visuals, I remember thinking, Oh, that’s so strange. I never thought I’d be interested in fashion photography because I’m not a fashionista myself. But as I looked at what these photographers created, there was storytelling and elegance and stunning lighting and conceptualization throughout the images. And I’m like, that’s what I meant to be doing. I think my original stumbling block was that I thought to be a fashion photographer, I had to own all these designer clothes and always be dressed up. But it doesn’t work that way. You don’t have to be the art, you can create the art.

“Most of the time I start with what inspires me about the model. I think about what she reminds me of, what styling I envision for her and what makeup suits her face.”

It seems like lighting is so critical to your work.

You’re totally right. When I think of beautiful lighting, I feel like I actually glow a little bit. It’s hard to explain. For the first 10 years of my photography, lighting was a means to an end. You throw a light on the photo to illuminate it and capture your subject. And then primarily what I focused on — because I did portrait photography — was just getting good expressions, but it wasn’t about the light telling any sort of story or achieving anything in the images.

At about the 10-year mark is when I moved to New York. And I started to be more aware of what made great photographers great. I took studio lighting classes and I feel like these seasoned photographers made it hard on purpose. So, I kind of avoided exploring it, but I think it’s because it’s almost like these photographers wanted to speak a secret language. If you knew their language, then they would let you into their world. And if you didn’t, you were an outsider. Eventually I spent the time with just me and the lighting so I could get to know it.

How would you describe your style?

So, my little elevator pitch is that my style is clean, bold, and graphic, and I portray women with strength and elegance. I explore slices of light and color. I love elements of the old, with a modern twist. I love trying to see how I can draw on what has been successful in the past but integrate my own style and give it fresh life.

I really like how you’re able to capture femininity, but also power. Sometimes for women those two things are at odds — the idea that you can’t be super feminine and still have power.

Yeah. I think it comes back to how I want to be portrayed and who I want to be. I’m not meek, demure, soft. It’s just not who I am. I think it’s my way of saying I can be my own interpretation of what a woman is. It doesn’t have to like femininity or be one specific thing. I consider myself to be quite feminine, but maybe just not in the traditional ways.

Your work feels very theatrical. Is the theater an influence of yours?

I was a super theater kid. I loved it. I was the lead in the eighth grade play. And then when we got to high school, we did musical theater, and I can’t sing at all. So that sort of dashed my dreams away. The part of it I loved was the set design and dramatic theatrical lighting. I absolutely use that in my work. But I also think the other part of it is with my teaching. I get to do a little bit of that performance and stand up in front of big groups of people. And so between my photography and my teaching, I kind of check all those boxes.