Bruce Allen
From commerce to cameras, art-minded maverick Bruce Allen follows his avenue to fame across a panorama of fashion, fine art, and fascinating people.
Thriving in just his second year of business, Bruce Allen has expeditiously branded a name for himself not only as a photographer in DC’s domain of fashion and fine art but also as the creator and host of his own artist-centered podcast That's the Angle.
I meet with Bruce in his Takoma Park studio, which he accommodates for both his portraits and his podcast. Collections of props from past shoots and catalogs of pictures of past models arrange themselves here and there. Sprayed onto a painted wall is Bruce’s signature logo, his full name forged in wolf-like lettering. The space feels raw, but relaxed.
Bruce talks about his first year as a full-time freelancer, meeting inspiring artists on his podcast, and how he saved himself from solitude by rediscovering photography.
In an interview you did for The S33d, you said that two years ago you didn’t even own a camera—you were selling sunglasses. What led to your decision to pursue photography full-time?
I didn’t own a digital camera. I grew up doing a lot of film photography, and I was actually quite an elitist film snob. All through high school, I was shooting film for this company’s brand called Lomography and developing film at CVS, and that’s how I kind of learned. That gave me a solid core for everything. It wasn’t fashion or portraits—it was just capturing life. I went to Old Dominion University for college wanting to study photography, but there wasn’t a program for it, so I was like, “All right, what’s my next best thing?” And I got into music. But I still continued to do film—in fact, I just got a bunch of film from college developed.
You mean recently?
Yeah. And that was five or six years ago, you know? It was crazy looking back at all those memories of film. I actually did photojournalism for the school paper my first year. It’s funny because the only story I ever even did there ended up getting Photo of the Year and Story of the Year. It got picked up by the local paper and created a lot of buzz in the local area. The photo was essentially this golf course that jetted out into the water where the school was on. It was made of trash, but on the far side, it was eroding the trash going into the water. Me and my buddy canoed out there one day and we saw it. I was like, “Whoa! This is the story!” I took photos, pitched it, and it blew up, and I ended up winning some awards that year for the newspaper. But after that, I went cold turkey.
Just like that? What made you stop?
All my cameras broke and I didn’t have the money to do it. It was too expensive and I was really getting into music. I was playing in some bands, I was going to school—it just kind of got lost in translation. But post-college, I worked in the music industry and didn’t like it, so I decided, “Fuck all—I’m going to stop all this, move back home, and rediscover my center for whatever I want to do.”
And that’s when you ended up selling sunglasses.
Selling sunglasses was the cheapest and easiest thing to do, so I ended up flipping sunglasses on Amazon and eBay. With content marketing, because I’m a huge fan of Gary Vaynerchuk and his whole thesis—and you can kind of see that in everything I do—he says you need content, so I thought, “I need content to market these sunglasses. Let me go ahead and do it myself.” I also wanted to start a YouTube channel, so the girl I was dating at the time fronted half the money and I got this crappy [Canon] Rebel T5i. So I started creating content—and I did pay her back. She was my first model. I shot some of her friends too, and it got to the point where I was scheduling so many shoots that I didn’t like the company anymore. I was so tired being at home on the computer setting up campaigns, I just got to a really dark place.
That sounds really solitary.
It was very solitary. But I found photography through the content. I was like, “You know what? I really enjoy this.” I lost the photographer’s eye for a long time because there’s a unique way you look at the world when you’re a visual artist or a photographer. And I started to regain that and be very inspired. So I said, “All right—photography’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“I lost the photographer’s eye for a long time because there’s a unique way you look at the world when you’re a visual artist or a photographer. And I started to regain that and be very inspired. So I said, ‘All right—photography’s what I want to do for the rest of my life.’”
I put away my e-commerce hustle and used my degree to get a nine-to-five job. I knew the job wasn’t permanent, so I slacked off the whole time spending all my money on equipment. All I did was go to work, work out, and travel to DC or Richmond shooting with vloggers and influencers. Anyone who had more social clout than me, I would collaborate with them to promote myself and it worked. I didn’t get paid. I was planning shoots the whole year, learning my camera, learning how to work with models, how to schedule. And here I am now, in the full-time photography business for a year.
So you rediscovered what you’d already loved doing before. Has dedicating your life to photography helped you discover anything new about yourself?
When it’s up to you to get clients, generate income, and do all of these things, it definitely teaches you to be a good person all the time. When you’re trying to run a business, you find out relationships are the backbone of everything in freelance, so when someone cancels on me or fucks me over, I can’t hold a grudge. It’s taught me to try to be the bigger man, and it’s made me a better person in that regard. But don’t get me wrong—there are still people who hate me every month. [laughs]
Most of your work focuses exclusively on fashion or fine art. What attracted you to those genres?
I’ve always been into fashion. Growing up, I’d watch America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway at home after school—also Anthony Bourdain and food shows. It’s what I was interested in as a kid. I’m an only child, so I didn’t have many other influencers. With fashion, if you’ve ever been in front of a well-designed piece of garment, it’s amazing how you can feel the energy of it. And when you see it on a model—which is a work of art itself—you see these two works of art and it’s breathtaking. Capturing that is so much fun because it lets me be creative.
Walk me through that creative process. How do you approach each of your shoots?
For the most part, it starts as a small idea. For instance, I want to use the storefronts down North Capitol that look old and grimy with neon signs and a New York aesthetic. I want to use dirty water hot dog carts in front of the Capitol as a backdrop and contrast that with high fashion dresses. This idea all started because me and my friend Sarah wanted to buy hot dogs and thought, how funny would it be if a model with a $3,000 dress was eating a hot dog with mustard on it? It could be terrible very fast, but I think that’s where my artistic side comes in. I don’t try to repeat things that everyone else does just for clickbait.
Are you guilty of doing any of those trends yourself?
No, you won’t see me doing any fairy lights or spheres or smoke bombs.
“I’ve always been into fashion. Growing up, I’d watch America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway at home after school—also Anthony Bourdain and food shows. It’s what I was interested in as a kid. I’m an only child, so I didn’t have many other influencers.”
What are some of the most rewarding brands you’ve worked with?
My best fashion work is for magazines, or sometimes I do it for myself. Brands I work with tend to be local designers or local fashion, and it’s a natural progression to where I want to go. It’s cutting my teeth before I get to the big dogs because I don’t think anyone can just get into a Gucci shoot and crush it. I do want to shoot for crazy big brands—Balmain, Chanel, Louis Vuitton—I want to reach the pinnacles of that. I 100% think I could. But there are levels to fashion shoots that I don’t think I’ve even seen yet. A New York fashion shoot is different than anything I’ve seen in DC.
As a fashion photographer, you know whether or not a model can bring your vision to life. What do you try to look for in the models you work with?
I try to work with models who have something about them that turns on. It’s something you can only feel in a shoot after shooting a bunch of models. It’s that one model that over-delivers. They’re not scared to pose. My best stuff is when I don’t have to tell them anything. High-talent models of that caliber are insane—they’re superheroes. You know it because every frame is just magic. I try to work with those models a lot. I’ve reached the point where unless a model has a track record or is signed, I wouldn’t want to work with them. And I think every photographer should do that because you need to level up your shoots—better models who pose better, makeup artists, stylists, thinking about your shoot more, your location more, what time to shoot. Good models get into character.
In such a highly saturated market of fashion photography, how would you want people to identify your work? What makes a photo look and feel like a Bruce Allen photo?
I’d say a lot of my editing has been vintage-inspired. Everyone in my world has been doing vintage stuff, so I’ve been looking at old photos of people I admire. I do a lot of work with color curves if you want to be specific. It’s weird because our photos are so sharp and we spend so much time making them unsharp. Why not just shoot film in the first place, right? We’re not that smart, I guess. But also, at the same time, I just did one of my favorite shoots where I used fake designer ski masks and I barely edited the photos. It was super clean.
Photo by Bruce Allen
Photo by Bruce Allen
Looking back at all your past shoots and exhibitions, was there one that you felt officially defined you as a serious photographer?
I live in two worlds: fine art and fashion. In the fashion world, when I shot for Washington Life Magazine I got to really flex my editorial side, which is a side I really enjoy. We shot at this dope hotel called Eaton and every room in that building looks like a set. I chose locations around the hotel and told a story that way. That shoot was really pivotal because it was published, and it was a full production, and I just loved that.
In the fine art world, my second exhibition “Exotic Goods”—where I commented on Asian women in the American system—I was working with creative directors who brought me in to make that possible. It was fun to execute someone else’s idea. But my first exhibition in July last year really affirmed it. I spent so much time trying to grow an audience, and to have all these people come out to this exhibition that I put on all by myself—I printed and framed everything, did all the marketing for it—over 100 people came to the point where the police had to shut it down. It said something to me that people cared. It felt like a level-up.
You’re involved with your podcast That’s the Angle just as much as your photography. Was this something you’d always planned to create, or did your time working with people as a photographer inspire you?
Funny, that goes back to college as well. I had a radio show every Friday night where I would play EDM records and bring in local DJs and interview them. I’ve been on YouTube for two or three years now, so I’ve always done content creation. And I went to school for audio engineering, so I already knew how to make things sound good. Running with my Bruce Allen brand, I wanted to do a podcast.
Anyone that was somewhat related to the photography world I wanted to interview because I didn’t want the podcast to only be for photographers. I wanted anyone to enjoy it, but still keeping a photography center. There’s this service called Anchor that I used to distribute my podcast. I spent the first few months just talking through my phone on my drives back to DC, and it started to get traction. I hate most of the photography podcasts out there. I think they’re very nerdy. They’re like, “This is how you get more sales and leads!” And people are so scared to be non-PC in the photography world. I still have love and respect for them, but I just didn’t like those podcasts and I knew most photographers weren’t like that.
Who are some people you’ve interviewed? What are your discussions like?
I’ve been getting some amazing guests. I interviewed this guy named District Dodger the other day, a video artist who had his first exhibit at Union Market. I interviewed Kate Warren who shot for The New York Times and The Washington Post—she just did this crazy piece where she talked to witches in Salem.
These podcasts are just so fun because these people offer more insight and I get to have amazing conversations with inspiring people. And I didn’t realize that I was actually shining light on DC creatives. Someone told me that. Like, I interviewed Joy Kingsley. She runs one of the biggest modeling agencies here—black-owned, female-owned—and people didn’t know that. I get comments from people that say these episodes are inspiring or informative. Spotlighting DC is cool.
Between working on building your reputation as a photographer and now for your podcast, how have you been measuring success for yourself?
Right now, success for me is sadly money-driven. Just because I’m at that point in my career where money allows me to do things I want to do. That’s just a stage of anyone in their second year of business—they’re just keeping their head afloat. While I think everything I’m doing is working according to plan [cackles jokingly], as far as the Bruce Allen brand goes, I run a business, so I need to make money.
But I think success is also measured in the quality of work that I’m doing, and how fulfilling that feels, whether I’m challenging myself or making myself feel uncomfortable with the level of shoots I’m executing. Can I sell a fine art picture for a couple hundred dollars? Can I get published in this magazine? How high up in this ladder can I go?
“It’s cutting my teeth before I get to the big dogs because I don’t think anyone can just get into a Gucci shoot and crush it. I do want to shoot for crazy big brands—Balmain, Chanel, Louis Vuitton—I want to reach the pinnacles of that. I 100% think I could.”
Well, after accomplishing all of this in only two years, I’d say you could go pretty much anywhere you’d like.
My goal for all of this is very selfish in a lot of ways. I want to be really a well-known, famous photographer personality. Doing all of this is way more strategic than people think. My North Star is I don’t want to die anonymous as a photographer, as a creative, as an artist. All these things I do go back towards that ethos of “How big can I make myself? How can I get the most attention and create some sort of weird legacy?”