Well-known / Not Well-known Folks: Photographer Matt Licari

Over a decade in the past, a few of Matt Licari’s earliest revealed images appeared in our printed pages, again when he was dwelling in Richmond. Since then, Licari has gone on to turn into a sought-after editorial photographer, taking pictures globally acknowledged actors, musicians, and public figures, whereas persevering with to doc folks and locations removed from the highlight.

What connects all of his work is restraint and a spotlight. Whether the topic is legendary or not, the images resist spectacle. The lighting is affected person, the compositions are quiet.. A celeb portrait and a avenue {photograph} are handled with the identical seriousness, the identical house to breathe.

As RVA Magazine marks 20 years, we caught up with Licari to speak about how he went from right here to there, why aiding nonetheless issues, and why, for him, pictures has all the time been about folks first.

“I was driving back and forth from New York to Richmond, I want to say at least once, but upwards of three or four times a month,” Licari stated. “I was pretty supremely exhausted, spending much of my life on I-95. I’d get a call while I was in Richmond and they’d say, ‘Hey, we have something for you, like, tomorrow. Are you around?’ And I’d just say yes. Then I would go overnight or something and sometimes show up the morning of the shoot and just shoot it.”

Sometimes it didn’t cease there.

“I might get a call that same night, ‘Hey, are you around in Richmond the next day?’ And I would say sure. So there was definitely a hustle,” he stated. “I was like mid-20s at that point, so I had it in me. But I was definitely starting to feel it, especially physically, just being in the car so much.”

That stretch marked the top of his time dwelling in Richmond, and the start of one thing greater. He was committing to trend and editorial pictures in a severe method and realizing that expertise alone will not be sufficient.

“I was really committing to fashion at that point and trying to understand how to up my game,” Licari stated. “I was kind of realizing that I needed to do certain things with the people that I worked with, meaning working with a certain caliber of hairstylists, makeup artists, clothing stylists, models, things like that.”

“So I started to expand my network in a way that I don’t think I realized I needed to do several years earlier.”

Tina Knowles and Sting, pictures by Matt Licari

He began the best way most photographers do, on the backside, paying consideration.

“Assisting does a lot of things,” he stated. “It tells you what to do on set. It gives you a certain social etiquette. It gives you a certain hierarchical etiquette and understanding. It also tells you what not to do, in the sense that you may see photographers you’re assisting do things that don’t work out very well for them, whether it’s behavior or actual technique,” he stated. “And that is so valuable, because you don’t have to repeat that mistake yourself with your own clients.”

“It’s kind of like a freebie lesson,” Licari added.

“And then the next thing it does is that it gets you really embedded in the industry,” he stated. “You start knowing who’s out there doing stuff, you start having face time with editors and other assistants, and you can find your people.”

“I wasn’t teaching. I had done a lot of guest lecturing there,” Licari stated. “It started as guest lecturing on panels about photo assisting, because I was one of, I don’t know, 10 or 20 assistants who were doing some of the bigger jobs in Richmond at that time. That was my first connection to getting into the classrooms at VCU, as far as doing some sort of lecture.”

“Then the next step along the way was that I got a few interns through the photo department,” he stated. “That was great, because I was able to begin that educational, mentoring journey, which I continued for many years.”

Then, round 2013, he left for New York.

“The night or two before I actually moved back, I got notice that one of my main clients went Chapter 11 bankrupt,” Licari stated. “I had this moment where I was kind of like, spiritually, ‘Oh no, did I make the wrong choice moving back to New York?’”

“And the rent was like, not Richmond rent anymore,” he added.

“It was really hot and cold,” Licari stated. “That’s how my career has always been. It’s never just been easy, but it’s never always been hard either. It’s always kind of an up and down.”

“When I got back, it wasn’t a totally fresh market,” he stated. “I grew up in New York. I have tons of friends here. I’m a very social person. I tend not to burn bridges. But I did notice that there was some sweat equity I had to put in before I was just totally getting any jobs at all.”

RVA #14 Fall 2013, RVA Magazine, pictures by Matt Licari

“The limitations of working in Richmond are that the chances that, if somebody begins to excel greatly, for them to stay in Richmond are slimmer,” Licari stated. “There’s often the impetus to then go to a larger market, so what that gives you is you often have to chase the talent from another place. Whether it’s the best models or the best stylists or whatever,” he stated. “The flip side of that is that you can grab people on the come-up, and that’s pretty cool.”

“That’s probably one of the larger limitations,” Licari stated. “You can get really cool stuff in Richmond, but it might not be certain kinds of name brands that you would only be able to access in really like five or six cities in the world.”

“My first celebrity shoots were definitely Richmond,” Licari stated. “I’m pretty sure it was Richmond.”

“I think one of them would have been for Virginia Living,” he stated. “I was up in New York for that weekend, and they were like, ‘Hey, I know you’re a Richmonder that goes to New York. There’s this guy from Richmond, and he’s in a Broadway play. Can you shoot him?’”

“That was one of the first,” Licari stated.

“And then there was another one that was a comedian who was starting to make it bigger,” he stated. “That was also Richmond. Sarah Schaffer was the comedian.”

“There’s always like a slight amount of, I don’t want to say nerve,” Licari stated. “Maybe anticipation is probably the best word. I don’t know if starstruck is the right word,” he stated. “But definitely anticipation.”

“One that stands out for me was Damian Marley,” Licari stated. “And I think that’s just because when I was a college kid, that album was going around like crazy. What was cool was we saw him, we hung out with him before the show. I took my future wife and pretended she was my assistant. I was like, ‘You want to meet Dave?’”

“And then we saw the show,” Licari stated. “It was so good. It was the Marley brothers. All five of them. They’re so talented, and they sound just like him, like Bob Marley. And then after the show, we saw him again,” he stated. “And I think at that moment I felt like a little kid again.” 

Photos by Matt Licari

“I have a book coming out in April,” Licari stated, “that is a collection of photographs on Yonkers, New York.In that body of work, I was looking at how the landscape and the people sort of spoke to one another,” he stated. “How they both endured one another, but also sort of complemented one another. And also just like what it’s like to be alive in Yonkers during those years,” Licari stated.

“I work very much in series,” he stated.

“For that body of work, and really for my personal work in general, the catchall would be just the human condition,” Licari stated. “I’m really interested in specific human beings and their multidimensionality.”

When it involves how typically he shoots private work, he says it is available in cycles.

“Yes and no,” Licari stated. “I do spurts.”

“There are days and months and even years where I’m bringing a camera absolutely everywhere,” he stated. “As I’ve gotten a little older, I’ve been more on and off with that. “I’ve started to write and make songs and music and other things,” Licari stated. “So there are months where I’m only shooting for work, but I’m writing a lot or making a lot of music. And then I’ll have enough time to be away from the personal photography to want to go back to it, then you can’t take the camera out of my hand.”

When requested in regards to the state of the occupation. 

“It’s who you know, the quality of your work, and your personality. Personality is a big part of it,” Licari stated. “Just like, don’t be an asshole.Do not be cocky. Do not think you have it going on, Anytime I’ve ever slipped into any hubris, even if it wasn’t apparent in my personality, but even if it was just in my head, it’s hurt me. I think that if you don’t be above any kind of work or any kind of learning opportunity, and at the same time make personal work,” he stated, “that’s a big one.”

“And have a vision,” Licari stated. “Have a distinctive voice.”

When it involves how folks reply to his work, Licari says he can solely mirror what he’s heard.

“One of the things that people have consistently told me is that the work was sensitive,” he stated. “Sensitive and raw. Those are probably two of the words that I hear the most about my work. And I would say that’s not untrue,” he stated.

“I try to avoid giving people a rubric through which to engage with the work,” Licari stated. “Once you make the image or the tune or the poem, it belongs to the world. And should you put it on the market, that’s how that goes. 

“It’s like, on to the next,” Licari stated. “Who was it? Chuck Close? He said perfection is for amateurs. The rest of us just get back to work.”

Looking again, Richmond stays foundational. “I’ll never forget my Richmond beginnings,” Licari stated. “Richmond definitely holds a spot in my heart.”

Main picture of Ethan Hawke

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