Jasper Soloff is a Los Angeles based photographer and director whose work has previously appeared in Vogue, GQ, Paper Magazine, Dazed, i-D Magazine, Nylon Magazine, Out Magazine, Gay Times, and Billboard to name a few.
He was also awarded VFILES Photographer of the Year in the fall of 2018. Soloff has directed Music Videos for RCA Records, Capitol Records, Sony Universal and Disruptor Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and Roc Nation.
One of his latest productions is a music video for a song called “Lazy Baby” by Dove Cameron which recently hit 5M views.
Beyond that, he’s just an inspirational young artist with quite a few knowledge pills for you to swallow!
First of all, while he’s played as many roles as you can imagine within the entertainment field (creative director, director, photographer etc.) he reveals that direction and photography is where he shines.
“Even when creative direct musicians or artists, I always make sure that I’m very hands on and have my skin in the game. It’s crucial for me to be able to produce the ideas I come up with.”
His main focus these days is shifting towards commercials and productions of that sort, even though he admits it’s a bit of a foreign land for him.
“It is foreign to me still but I’m trying to expand my creative realms and experiment with as much as possible. I’ve always loved the idea of reaching as many people as possible with my work and what’s better than reaching new audiences with your material on TV or billboards?”
As mentioned before, Jasper is only 25 years old so his luminous career at such a young age begs the questions: how the hell did he do it?
“I went through the normal stages of studies and learning, first upstate New York and then London which is where I started realizing what my calling was since a lot of my fellow students were already booking campaigns and getting their hands dirty.
I didn’t have the confidence to get out there and start grinding at that time but watching my friends going for it really inspired me!”
“So I moved back to New York and started looking for jobs but it was really tough to even find anyone who would call me back which in hindsight was such a blessing in disguise.
I mean, I didn’t wanna go sit on a desk all day so while I was unemployed I started creating again and I must say the queer community I was part of at that time was so inspiring. I started making work that spoke to me and drove me to get better and better!”
Jasper’s work started circulating and got the attention of a small indie magazine that hired him as art director.
“I shot a cover with Brandon Flynn who starred in ‘13 Reasons Why’ and that made me see I actually had a creative voice and my path was ahead of me. I started hustling and never stopped. To this day it still feels so surreal everytime I get a job! There’s always that pressure on you and I don’t think it’s a bad thing because it keeps you on your toes and wanting to get more accomplished!”
What really struck our eye about Jasper’s work is its bright and colorful nature. However, such explosion of colors has a very peculiar and interesting origin.
“I love playing with color as a form of expression. I use color to explore and dissect the subject’s emotions. I think it adds to the whole project in a very unique and powerful way. What’s funny is that I’m actually not the ‘happiest go lucky’ person in the world so sometimes the use of bright color could be a tool to disguise and conceal darkness in a way.”
“I just love using color as an expressive tool. Think about it. A very oversaturated color can be almost scary and grotesque and communicates very dissonant emotions all in one image.”
Jasper’s use of color is not the only surprising and unexpected segment of our chat. When we asked him if there was any top celebrity he would die to shoot he answered:
“This might be super random but I’d have to say Miranda Lambert haha I just ove country music
