An interview with Nashco Photo

Leah Nash and Chris Onstott, collectively Nashco Photo, are a commercial photography duo based our of Portland, Oregon, who won our competition The Human Body with a stunning, joyful image of a body in motion. Keen to learn more, we put some questions to Leah – asking about that image, their backgrounds and work, and the meaning of “crafted reality”…

Hi Leah. Firstly, congratulations on winning our competition, The Human Body. What did you make of the judge Sanne De Wilde’s comments?

This image reminds me very much of the Venus figurines of the Paleolithic time, so I love that she used the word ‘icon’. It’s also wonderful that she used the words joy and respect because it was really important to us that our subjects felt empowered by the experience and so I’m glad it translates to the image. And well, if we can create images that inspire and embrace, you can’t ask for more than that.

THE HUMAN BODY: NASCHO PHOTOS’ WINNING IMAGE

I understand it’s from a series of work taken in collaboration with Body Home Fat Dance, a fat-celebrating dance troupe in Portland. What first drew you to this subject matter, and how did the collaboration come about?

A good friend of mine is in the dance troupe and I had a chance to see one of their performances and just fell in love with the message and the idea of highlighting what larger people could do with their bodies that other, smaller dancers, couldn’t. Instead of looking at curves as something to hide, they were celebrating it. I’m someone who has been guilty of size-ism and fat discrimination in the past and so I felt like this was a chance to flip that thinking on its head and reexamine the modern traditional standard of beauty, which is so limiting and exclusionary. I attended a couple of rehearsals and pitched my idea and voilà!

The theatricality and performance of this dance troupe really comes across in your execution of this image, but there’s also a real sense of mystery and subtly to it – it’s as much fine art as it is a documentation of performance. Can you tell us a little bit about your vision for and approach to this series, and the technical aspects in arriving at the final result?

The dance they do has a lot of movement, which focuses on folds, and jiggling and we wanted that to come across in the photos. We did a test shoot and tried several techniques, but decided on this approach because it both highlighted their naked (or mostly naked) bodies but wasn’t gratuitous. By using shadows, the images become less specific, more about the body and shapes than any one person and more about mystery. It is like we are retraining our brains to see how beautiful mass and flesh can be.

You speak of compassion in your series statement – of a desire to celebrate fat liberation and creative expression. What has the response to the work been like?

For the most part it has been very positive, but of course there is always going to be push back. There were even a few negative comments on the Life Framer Instagram account when this image was published. It’s like some people think that larger people should be hidden, feeling ashamed. Look, we all probably wish we could change something about ourselves or our bodies, and women especially are told by society that they need to look a certain way, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of women apologizing for who they are. So often we will photograph women, and they will make derogatory comments about themselves, apologizing for how they look. Where does this come from and why is it okay?

You work as a creative duo, which is reasonably rare in photography. How did you first start working together, and what does the partnership bring? Would you encourage other photographers to ‘buddy up’?

Christopher and I met romantically about 8 years ago, he was working for a newspaper and I have always been a freelancer. He was not feeling appreciated at his job and at that point I had clients looking for more polished and produced work and so NASHCO (my last name and his initials) was born. It works for us because we have different, but complementary strengths. I handle the money, the marketing and the producing and Chris is tech support and a gear and lighting wizard. We both take turns shooting. I am a big believer in collaboration, and it is wonderful to have someone to bounce ideas off of, but we are both passionate people and care deeply about the work we do, so some days the sparks do fly.

You talk about ‘crafted reality’ in your approach. What do you mean by that?

Our tagline is “We make it real,” because Clients hire us to create work that looks and feels authentic, but is still polished. So hence the phrase ‘crafted reality’. Though we work with all types; real people, actors, and models for industries like education, healthcare, travel, agriculture and our portrait work, we both have backgrounds in photojournalism and because of that our strength is in capturing intimate storytelling.

I understand the Body Home Fat Dance series to be a personal project, but you do a huge amount of editorial work – fashion, food, portraiture, lifestyle… for big and small brands. What are your favorite types of project or subject matter to work on? Who make for the best clients?

I couldn’t narrow it down to one type of project or subject! The best part of our job is that every day is different, and that is what keeps us fresh and always learning. For us we always want to be photographing things that make us think or see differently, teach us something new and foster connection. One day we might be climbing on the tops of homes and hanging with roofers, and the next day celebrating the Vietnamese New Year for the New York Times with an 86 year grandma who gambles and drinks Hennessey.

The best clients are folks that trust us to do what we do best and aren’t afraid to push the envelope.

If there’s one piece of advice you could pass on to your younger selves, or perhaps aspiring commercial photographers, what would it be?

Make pictures that you desperately want to be making, nonstop. Then figure out how to do that differently than it’s been done before. Take advantage of everything that makes you unique or that you have access to in your life. Always have a personal project going. Network. Join professional organizations. Find a mentor. Remember that this is a business and no one owes you anything. Have a plan and work hard, learn about contracts and licensing.

And finally, what’s keeping you busy right now?

We’ve had a COVID-safe set policy in place since around April, so we are working with several clients and have been since spring, especially a lot of editorial and newspaper work. Work definitely slowed down last year but that gave us a chance to re-do our website (twice!), work on personal projects (https://www.nashcophoto.com/voteloud and https://www.nashcophoto.com/population-isolation), figure out how to make gifs, and focus on marketing. So we always find ways to keep ourselves busy for good or bad.