Boogie is my favourite photographer outside of music and fashion. His work is far from music photography or any kind of editorial fashion stuff; Boogie is more of a street-oriented, lifestyle photographer.
A lot of his work focuses on local environment as he perfectly captures street scenes from various countries around the world. The imagery stems from real life situations that he’s come across and much of Boogie’s work examines gang culture. The first pictures I came across of his were of gangs in New York on a visit to Brooklyn. Lots of Boogie’s images are full on and raw but there’s a gritty beauty to them. One of my favourites is a photo of a gangster with his arms around his little sister, holding a gun. There is definitely a very dangerous side to Boogie’s imagery, but the way he shows the humanness of the subjects at the same time, is what makes him so special.
The first time I found Boogie’s work I was doing a University project about violent imagery. I was drawn to the fact that he was shooting these really striking images of gangs, but the more I looked into his work and researched him I came to understand that’s not simply what he’s about. In Paris, he took a beautiful photo of two old ladies crossing the street. The image could be from a fashion editorial even though it’s taken on the fly and wasn’t set up. Another striking photo he took is of two birds flying; many of my favourite pictures by Boogie don’t include humans in them.
I love all of his work, especially the photo collections he’s captured in Brazil, New York and Jamaica.
Boogie featured in my 12 Days of Christmas shopping guide, with his latest book, ‘A Wah Do Dem’, featuring photos taken on the Caribbean island. The story of how he got started is also amazing to me just the fact that he won his green card to America in a lottery in Serbia. I didn’t even know they had a lottery to apply for a green card, but the fact that’s how he ended up in America and the fateful turn that propelled his career is amazing to me.
His Instagram account is equally inspirational, you should check it out and follow him, @boogiephotographer.
