Cars through the Lens of Photographer Eric Johnson
Photo: Eric Johnson
For several decades, photographer Eric Johnson has trained his lens on young artists to capture what makes them classically cool. His subjects include Aaliyah, Lauryn Hill, Lady Gaga, Missy Elliott, and Maxwell. His work is both multidimensional and conceptual including a body of work he calls, “Upstairs at Eric’s,” shot at his Manhattan loft-style apartment, an alternative space that’s long been a sanctuary for young misfits.
Johnson has photographed Le1f, Juliana Huxtable Honey Dijon and FKA Twigs during long evenings at Upstairs at Eric’s. “Somehow I became like the ringleader of this little scene and culture that people were comparing to like Warhol’s Factory,” says Johnson. “We used to rage and party hard and everything, and I was like taking photos of a bunch of different kids, a lot of outcasts from different cultures and different sexualities.”
Photo: Eric Johnson
What also constitutes a substantial part of Johnson’s extensive archives are his images of vintage cars, which are also classic and cool. At times he shoots the cars alone in black and white or in dusty color, still or traveling blurry through the night. At other times, he’s paired cars with artists. One series includes portraits of Lady Miss Kier, the lead singer of Deee-Lite and the dance music singer Ultra Nate driving around in the backseat of Johnson’s 1966 Ford Mustang. The conversation in the photos feels intimate and unrehearsed. “They weren’t published,” he says. “We just kind of did them for ourselves.”
In fact one of his most notable car shoots was for a Vibe magazine cover of Notorious B.I.G. and Faith Evans. The two, dressed in shiny leather, posed regally in a sky blue Cadillac convertible against a cloudy New York skyline. One of the images from the shoot ended up being used as an album cover for the post-humus 1999 Notorious B.I.G. album. “I thought it would be cool to rent a car,” he said. “One of the cars was from the movie Bronx Tale. I had no idea that photo would be so important later. It was everywhere. Young people tell me that’s one of their favorite photos in hip hop.”
Johnson says he always has been a car buff, particularly for muscle cars and NASCAR. His mother and stepfather met when he saw her driving her new green 1969 Ford Torino. He coincidentally had just ordered the same exact car. After they got together there were two matching green Torinos in Johnson’s childhood driveway. Recently his mom told him she had secretly always wanted to be a NASCAR driver.
Photo: Eric Johnson
One of Johnson’s favorite memories was accompanying his friend actress Rosie Perez to a NASCAR race where he met his favorite driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon. “Now Chase Elliott is my favorite,” Johnson says. “His dad was a big racer, and he seems like a nice guy.” Talladega is Johnson’s favorite track, and he watches every weekend.
In high school, Johnson drove a 1974 Dodge Charger, until it was stolen, followed by the 1966 Mustang convertible that he had for a number of years. Raised in Newark, he studied at the School for Performing Arts. Johnson has been shooting photos since he was 16 years old. He attended FIT for photography, and he assisted for a commercial photographer in the early 1980s.
Johnson is a narrative photographer who embeds himself in a scene and documents it as its unfolding around him. As a club kid, in the mid 1980s, he found his subjects at Area and then hanging out at Sleeping Bag records. His first hip hop record cover was for Special Ed in 1988. “As hip hop got bigger, I got bigger.” His work suited counterculture magazines like Dazed and Confused and Interview. He was interested in what he encountered in his everyday life. “I always have my thirty-five millimeter camera,” he says. He traveled often to California and to visit his family in Virginia, and that’s when car photos began to creep into his work. “So I just take photos of cars like everywhere and I've got really good ones.” On one trip he documented a green and purple Plymouth Roadrunner he remembered from childhood.
Whatever he’s shooting, he has a keen eye for detail. Once on a location scouting trip for a Cam’ron album cover shoot, he visited Juelz Santana’s apartment uptown. “When I went to look at his apartment for locations it was empty except for this one room that had a purple rug and car tires leaning against the wall. I’d never seen wheels with rims inside of an apartment. I took a picture of that.” Later he pitched the concept to Barney’s, and it was used for an ad campaign that he shot. In one photo, the model stands upright as the wheel and tire lean against the door. In another shot, the model rests on the couch, one hand on the wheel next to him.
True to his style, Johnson has always had the knack for finding the obscure details and making them stand out in a striking form.
