New York is the city that never sleeps because most of us who live here are up late creating beautiful things. The people who live here are creative and entrepreneurial beasts who make New York City the most diverse and wonderful place to live. They are the heart beat of our city.
Creative individuals like Preston Burford are the reason I love New York. Creativity and artistic vision like his inspire me to be more creative and to “think outside the box.”
Creativity is contagious. When you’re a creative person, curiosity and the desire to connect with like-minded people is part of the creative process, which is another reason why I enjoy living in New York. I have endless opportunities to meet and interview the most amazing artists and talent from around the city.
Preston Burford is a photographer based in Astoria, Queens, who has worked with some of our community’s finest like RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 8 winner, Bob the Drag Queen. He’s also photographed one of my favorites, Alyssa Edwards. I love his whimsical approach to photography. His images are where reality meets fantasy and are the reason why I wanted to catch up with this New York photographer to learn more about him.
I caught up with Preston to chat about photography, New York and Drag Race.
We love your photography and editing skills, particularly because of the backgrounds of your subjects! How do you choose a specific background for a particular photo and how to edit it later? Do you create a particular concept and then go with it or do you take the individual you’re shooting into consideration and then come up with a concept?
I’ve sort of become known for doing surreal settings and over-the-top colors, so everything in recent years I’ve decided to shoot on the green-screen. I can control the look and feel so much more than trying to accomplish a similar look/feeling/mood in a real world setting. The backgrounds are almost always added in after the photos are taken and I’ll usually have a talk with the person I’m shooting before hand because it will rely mostly on what they’re wearing and the look they are going for. I always give the person the option to choose what they want the setting and lighting to be, but many of them seem to trust me and let me run wild. I draw my inspiration from the person’s personality and past and hopefully that reflects in the final product. As much as I’m putting them in surreal situations, I still want it to reflect who they are.
Your Facebook About Page reads, “I am a photographer in NYC.” Are you originally from New York City and if now what drew you to NYC?
I grew up in Dallas, Texas and moved out to San Francisco at 18 for film school. I studied on-set special effects and that’s where my interest in green-screening and post production editing really started. I stayed in San Francisco for over 8 years because I loved the city and people so much. But I had always wanted to live in NYC. One day a friend of mine said he was thinking of moving there and before he even finished his sentence I told him I was going to be his roommate and then 3 months later I was living in NYC! I’ve been here almost 5 years now and I can’t imagine myself anywhere else!
Many of your photos are very NYC-centric. New York City boroughs are known for having slightly different characters and flavors. Which borough influences you the most and why is that?
That’s an interesting question. Well I live in Astoria Queens but I don’t believe my photos reflect Astoria that much. I’d definitely have to say Manhattan because it’s bold and changes at every turn. I love the outlandish and flashy architecture, the old mixed with the new. It’s really the melting pot they tell you about as a kid when you hear about this city. I’m also very much a people watcher and Manhattan has every demographic for people watching.
Where in the city do you prefer to conduct photo shoots (eg. the parks, the streets, rooftops, subway, etc.) and why is that?
I rarely do photo shoots outside of my apartment studio anymore. With the drag queens it’s almost always the studio set up because they want soft, controlled lighting and the green-screen ability. The only drag queen I’ve shot outside of a studio setting was Roxy Brooks while in Mykonos, and it was the only day the whole summer that there was fog…so the sunset was added later to make it feel warm and beach-like. When I take photographs out in New York City it all depends on the reason for the shoot, but I love picking obscure places that add to whatever mood we are trying to get across. I have a photo of a work-out instructor jumping over multiple rooftops which was actually a real photo taken on a NYC roof, but in post-production I combined it with a few other photos I had taken at the same time and made it seem as if he was 30 feet in the air.
You also mention, “I enjoy editing the hell out of photos and making them come to life!” What is your editing process like post-photo shoot? What do you look at when editing your photos?
Once a photo shoot is done I’ll sift through all the photos and usually pick way too many that I like, but I usually let the person who I just shot pick out their favorites, since ultimately these are for them. Many times I’ll choose faces from one photo and bodies/arms/legs from other photos to create the image. Once the pieces are put together I’ll remove the green-screen and then go in and clean up the imperfections on the skin and outfits. Drag queens are perfectionists and will notice everything wrong with themselves, so this part takes a while. Then comes the fun part where I get to start building the scene. Recently I’ve been learning a 3D program for my full-time job and I’ve been incorporating it into photos, so something like Alyssa Edwards asking for balloons in her hand would have been pretty hard to make to look real with lighting and transparency by using stock photos, now I build them out in 3D and they look fun and they fit the scene!
Some of your 2016 work includes three New York City Queens who appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race this season, including Bob the Drag Queen, winner of Season 8. How did you get connected to these queens and how did your photo shoots develop?
The NYC drag world isn’t as large as some would imagine, so I’ve met Bob many times over the last few years while working with the drag queens in the city. The official introduction was with Monet X Change who invited Bob to join along with her photo shoot she had planned and Bob enjoyed the experience and the photos. She contacted me later about doing a photo with her carrying a baby on her chest and walking through an apocalyptic landscape which I was 100% into it. That photo turned out well and that led into her asking the other Drag Race girls to come work together on a few photos for local ads promoting all of them together. Being given the chance to get to work with all 3 together right in the center of their Drag Race moment was an honor and definitely helped me more than it helped them. So I thank Bob for giving me that opportunity.
Who would you like to photograph (alive or not) that you haven’t and why?
Hmm. I’ll stick to drag queens since that’s the theme right now. I’ve always loved Alaska from a photography standpoint. There are a couple drag queens who I feel are super-human or not even human at all, and Alaska is one of them. Both Sherry Vine and Alyssa Edwards were on my bucket list and I’ve had the opportunity to work with them. Another person I’d love to work with is Willam because she is just non-stop entertainment and I think it would be a creative photo shoot because she is willing to do ANYTHING. I also admire Bianca Del Rio and Adore Delano and would love photographing them, maybe together? Mother/Daughter prom photo? And obviously RuPaul would be epic.
Our magazine is geared to gay men with an edge. We like to ask all our featured interviewees, “What is something you have done that would be considered edgy, unconventional, or tight-lipped?”
Does having 200 photos of drag queens on a public account while applying for jobs count as edgy? Kidding. Trying to answer this question makes me wish I was more edgy and unconventional. You know what’s edgy and unconventional about me, I’ll eat a whole plate of nachos at a gay bar in front of everyone…and feel no shame!
We loved Preston’s images so much that we wanted to share a few more with you. We had many to choose from but here are our favorites.
Visit Preston’s Website: Click Here
