Joey Shaw

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About Joey Shaw

Joey Shaw was born and raised in Italy very close to Milan, the fashion capital of the world in the 80s and 90s.
He developed immediately as a teen ager his strong passion and love for everything that was light and
image composition, it doesn't matter if that was regarding a video or a picture.
He was introduced to photography and everything around it by anybody.
He used to say: "one day I picked up my first camera, an old Praktica coming from eastern Europe (of course completely manual) and that was my best emotion ever".
His life changed in that moment. He started working hard in a company to get the money to buy the new Canon and at least a couple of good lens.
During the weekends he spent all his time and money in the darkroom, developing new techniques, learning contrast and exposure with different kind of papers. Mixing filters and smelling like an old egg ("that is the reason I never had a real gf in those years - Joey Shaw x E channel").
He started immediately to make photo tests for the major model agencies in Milan and of course if you were born in those years in that place in the world you had to shoot fashion.
But Joey was boring sometimes and he got jobs following concerts or fashion shows and the love of his life...wthe wildlife, to better develop his limits with the camera.
Canon just came out with the first autofocus cameras and everybody was thinking that everything that was movement you had a chance to catch it with that new camera, but it was not like that.
A lot of practice was needed mostly with the first autofocus and in most of the cases he just switched to manual.
"But in those years I learned the limits with the light at the concerts, mixed with the film grain needed. Everybody was shooting with flashes, I was just changing and pushing the films. I was buying a 1600 ISO Kodak and I pushed that film to 3200. The grain was like a huge big pixel today on your computers." (Joey Shaw - E channel).
Then the first cover ever in the same years, for a horse's magazine, the first shot for Vogue Sposa, the first campaign turning on the mags.
Now, it's coming 20 years of experience in this business, 2 sold out books, a movie contract, a tv show following him on location and during his trips all over the world.
There was a trip in 1994 in LA. He met Aaron Spelling when he visited the Beverly Hills 90210 set. That day changed his life.
In the same days he got in touch with Herb Ritts in Beverly Hills where Herb used to live. Joey stole that time transforming it in the best experiences of his professional life, the best school ever, following and assisting Herb for 5 weeks in Paris and New York and then with Helmut Newton as well for 2 weeks.
"There's no school giving you that much, life is the best experience ever."
"There's no school for creativity till the day the schools will continue to tell the students where to go.
There's no direction to take in this world of creations."
When, during an interview for Le Monde a french journalist asked about his friendship with Gianni Versace and Gian Franco Ferre', he just replied: "I've been lucky I met the best designers, some of the best men and friends ever and I'm not that sad anymore cause they are dead, I love to think that if there's any God, he needed a designer upthere and he just called the best ever".
A new exhibition will start in 2012 traveling all over the world for 1 year called "the smell of life".
Joey is usually living between Montecarlo and Los Angeles.

Max, Maxim, Elle, GQ, Cosmopolitan, and many more the magazines publishing his pictures.
He received a nomination for the youth fashion photographer of the year for 2 years, in 1996 and in 1999.
"I am nobody, I just like to have fun with the light and a camera in my hands." - Fox News