Brianna Capozzi: “I love shooting women more than anything”

A chance viewing of Brianna Capozzi’s Tumblr account by an art director proved pivotal in driving her career as a full-time photographer forward. At the time, in 2014, New Jersey native Capozzi was working in a dime store when that art director saw her work online and put her forward to shoot a Victoria Beckham lookbook. She got the gig. Capozzi duly shot the Victoria Beckham Spring/Summer 2015 lookbook, and immediately quit her store job to follow her path into the highly competitive world of fashion photography.

Fast forward 12 years and Capozzi is one of the most sought-after young fashion photographers in the world. Her portfolio reads like an A-Z of fashion, Hollywood and music, having trained her lens on subjects including Selena Gomez, Chloë Sevigny, Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Jennifer Lopez, Pamela Anderson, Miley Cyrus, Bella Hadid, Alek Wek and Emily Ratajkowski. She has more than 128,000 followers on Instagram and her new book, Womanizer, is the third tome of her work, after 2018’s Well Behaved Women and 2024’s Sisters.

As the titles of her books suggest, her main focus is on women, but she has shot men for some of her commercial work, with a client base that has included Gucci, Calvin Klein, Cartier, Burberry and singer and actress Rihanna’s Fenty brand. Capozzi’s stylish images combine humour and surrealism, and are inherently provocative, with no fear of nudity or partial nudity when it’s central to the creative look and feel of a picture.

Brianna’s photos always convey both power and humour – an unlikely, but magical, combination

Capozzi had originally planned to pursue a career in fashion design and was adept at making clothes for models and styling them. In 2006, aged 18, she moved to New York City and started studying what was known as an ‘integrated design curriculum’ at Parsons School of Design in the Greenwich Village neighbourhood of the city. From there, the clothes designing aspect was overtaken by photography, but it has proven to be a significant strength in her understanding of the fashion world.

The foreword of Womanizer was written by actress Chloë Sevigny, who stated in it: “Brianna’s photos always convey both power and humour – an unlikely, but magical, combination that produces images that vibrate with wonder and surprise. She’s not afraid of what others might call bad taste – in fact, she celebrates it, transforming it into something sublime and uncanny.” Indeed, in an early shoot, for Marfa Journal, Capozzi used a lobster as Sevigny’s underwear and apparently then later offered it as dinner to her parents.

To find out more about one of fashion photography’s hottest properties, we caught up with Capozzi to discover the inside story of her latest book, motivations, inspirations, and her career thus far…

Square Mile: What sparked your initial interest in photography?

Brianna Capozzi: I was in college when I first started taking photos. I had been making garments and wanted to document them. I started shooting a series that became more about portraying an imagined world and characters than about the clothes I was making, and the shift from designing clothing into photography felt natural. I became more interested in the image-making process, and all the elements that go into creating a character, than the clothes themselves.

SM: Have any photographers or creative artists inspired your work?

BC: Yes, many. I would say my biggest influence is Helmut Newton. I feel very aligned with his ideas and subjects. His photographs are never boring. Even his most simple images have a sense of tension and excitement to them. Besides him, Steven Meisel, Guy Bourdin, and Cindy Sherman are all photographers whose work I am moved by.

Miley Cyrus at the Farralone Setate, Chatsworth, CA, 2022

SM: Did you always have ambitions to work in the fashion photography space?

BC: I always aspired to be in fashion in some form. Originally, I wanted to be a designer and was focused on making one-of-a-kind garments by hand, which led me into photography. I love clothing and style. It articulates so much personality in the world. A specific garment can inspire me to want to make an image, and keeps me interested in making new work. I’m especially drawn to archival fashion and fashion history within specific eras.

SM: What, if anything, was your ‘big break’ in your career?

BC: I don’t know if I had a ‘big break’, but working with [actress] Chloë Sevigny was a pivotal moment in my career. I started shooting her a year or two into my career thanks to [stylist] Haley Wollens, and while we were young, ambitious, and scrappy, she trusted us.

At the time, I didn’t realise how unique it was for someone of her calibre to be so open to experimenting and pushing boundaries. It’s truly rare. We made this incredible shoot with her playing different characters, and people noticed that story.

SM: What cameras do you typically use for your shoots?

BC: I shoot many different formats: 35mm, medium format, 4x5, and Polaroid.

Chloë Sevigny, New York City, 2017

SM: How did the idea for the Womanizer book come about?

BC: While I was working on my previous book [Sisters] I started to look through my archive. I went through each shoot, and each roll, tens of thousands of images, and started to see my work through the lens of a specific energy and type of woman: sexy, cheeky, and in-your-face, timeless and dominant. Seeing specific images sit together emphasised the nuance of my images and characters in a way I hadn’t seen so directly and vividly.

With that idea in mind, it felt like the perfect time to put something out that spanned the duration of my career and mixing early works alongside new.

SM: You mention in the intro that you “push for that moment”. Can you explain more about what you mean by that?

BC: There is a level of intrigue and exuberance that I’m always searching for within each image I make. I push through ideas as I’m behind the camera until something hits. It could be the way their body is positioned, the expression they suddenly make, a light change, the way the hair is falling, or the composition I finally find. That makes the image mine. I know it when I see it.

SM: In her foreword, Chloë Sevigny describes you as having “bravery and passion”. How do you inject bravery and passion into your photography?

BC: I am from New Jersey and Italian stock… passion is in my blood.

Selena Gomez with Mickey Mouse gloves, Los Angeles, 2019

SM: Can you tell us more about the creative and logistical processes for shooting the images in Womanizer?

BC: My process varies. Sometimes it’s very DIY – where I’m working entirely alone with my subject – and at other times, I’ll be collaborating with incredible teams of stylists, hair and make-up artists, set designers, lighting technicians, etc.

For the images made specifically for this book, I started with the woman. I sent casting director Julia Lange a list of women I have always wanted to shoot but hadn’t yet, as well as cast models and close friends who I have a long-standing rapport with.

I would concept the idea around them, building up from the character I want them to play. My previous book [Sisters] was a lot of intimate nude portraits that were very stripped back. I was excited to take it back to my roots and go full-throttle fashion for Womanizer.

SM: Do you think you are able to get more powerful images of women because you are a woman?

BC: I don’t think of it like that personally, and have no idea what it’s like to be a man and shoot these women. I just know that I love shooting women more than anything, and I feel very powerful when I’m around them and collaborating with them.

Fidan Sultan, New York City, 2024

SM: You mention in the ‘Stories’ part of the book, where you unpack the background to some of your images, that you are “full of doubt”. How do you overcome that doubt?

BC: It’s not so much to overcome it as much as to move forward regardless of it. There is always going to be doubt when creating. There are endless choices and ways for something to be made, and even a minuscule choice can make or break the end result. It’s very hard to know which is going to get the best result.

Sometimes I am shooting all the way until the end of the shoot and am so unsure if it’s good, but I keep going or else I wouldn’t make anything. We could wish we only made the best work of ours and cut out all of the work that didn’t turn out, but that’s not how creating works. I imagine life being very boring if it was.

SM: What were the biggest challenges that you faced during this book project?

BC: I would say once I decided I wanted to shoot new work for it and not have it be only a retrospective. It was hard to find the time to concept new shoots and make them all happen in the midst of campaigns and editorials.

SM: How did you edit down the images to include in the book?

BC: It took months. I looked through every shoot and every film roll I have made for over a decade – tens of thousands of images, starting in 2012. I focused on the energy of the image. The photo had to be fun and it had to feel like the essence of my woman was coming through.

Once I had narrowed it down, I asked my closest friends, stylists, boyfriend, and agent for their opinions. I love to ask people their opinions. From there, I worked closely with Carina Frey and Stephanie Barth, who designed the book, to finesse, then finalise selection, order and layout.

Pamela Anderson in Frankies Bikinis campaign, shot on Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, 2023

SM: Do you deliberately set out to make images timeless, or is that a happy result of your style?

BC: That is based on the nature of things that I am attracted to – both aesthetically and conceptually. I gravitate toward what I am naturally drawn to rather than current trends and fads, especially when it comes to lighting and hair and make-up, etc. I strive for things to feel modern and new, but also make something that I know will hold up down the line.

When I’m struggling to choose between two things – lighting, a shoe choice, a lip colour, or which photo to put in the edit – I think to myself, “Which one will I care about ten years from now?” And then the answer becomes clear pretty quickly.

SM: What do you want to convey to viewers in your pictures?

BC: I want to excite and entice.

SM: What are you most proud of in your career so far and why?

BC: Honestly, it sounds such a cliché to say this, but this book. It’s such a special accomplishment to have a Rizzoli book with this many fabulous people in it shot by me – and that I continue to love the images and work that I make.

I stuck to my authentic vision through the years as I navigated the industry and my evolving career. That’s not always easy and is something I hold a lot of value in.

SM: Finally, what’s next for you in terms of photographic and creative projects?

BC: I’m working on a very special new project right now, but I’m not ready to say what it is just yet. 

Commanding, uninhibited women captured through Capozzi’s provocative female lens, Womanizer by Brianna Capozzi is out now, priced £47.50, from rizzoliusa.com.