Let me take you back to August 2023, a few weeks before our Fall Collection drop and days ahead of our second campaign with Joe Greer. In a magnificent display of intentionally making things more difficult for ourselves we shot an editorial campaign for our biggest collection to date with 13 community members, all on film, in the middle of Brooklyn. A task not for the weak. Well, point being, Joe Greer brought on set a budding star in the film, street photography, and documentary game: Chris Chu to make a Youtube behind-the-scenes doc and assist him for the week.
Fast forward a few months, Chris is aboard the Bandit train and the cinematographer behind our recent Dialed series on Youtube. He's a camera wizard and a deeply studious on photography history. We went Through the Lens with Chris Chu below.
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Name: Chris Chu
Born in Daly City, California, Chris Chu channels themes of redemption from his childhood, and his love for hip-hop storytelling, in his documentary photography and filmmaking. His work has taken him to Europe, Africa, and South America, but it’s the human-interest stories of local New Yorkers that resonate with him most.
A beautiful panoramic display of the Bushmen tribe in Namibia. I love how each individual has their own independent gaze and expression.
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Schoolkids anxiously awaiting the announcement of the “King of the Field” award after a down-to-the-wire soccer match. It was awarded to the only girl who played with all these boys for her hat trick (3 goals) performance; she was dominant the entire game. Taken in a Zulu village in South Africa.
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A Sami tribe leader herding reindeer in the summer of Norway. The sun never set during this season, and the 24 hour exposure to light meant more work could be done.
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A championship basketball game in downtown Brooklyn. After I made so many photographs of the street leagues around New York, I changed up my technique to incorporate way more motion blur in an effort to create abstract, painter-like scenes of aggression.
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Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco, 2023. These three men were perfectly resting on the side of the bustling parade, and their individual characters are the perfect portrayal of blue collared Chinese men. The added bonus was the street art behind them by a San Francisco legend, Michael Jang; there’s layers to this cake.
