Landon Nordeman approaches red carpet photography as though it were street photography. He favors reflective moments over splashy ones, unassuming ones over Instagrammable ones, slyly poking the occasional hole in the polished sheen of celebrity culture.
He turned his lens on that most star-studded of New York events on Monday: the Met Gala, a benefit for the museum's Costume Institute but also a coveted platform for celebrities to display their relevance, and for designers to unveil their masterpieces; invitations are hyper-exclusive. Although Mr. Nordeman, 41, was monitored by a communications handler throughout the evening, he said, his lens occasionally strayed to the unconsidered wit hin the sea of meticulously orchestrated glamour.
Solange Knowles stands alone in one of his photographs looking surprised at something on her phone; her accordion-like yellow dress appears more impractical away from the flashes of adoring cameras. Celebrities register in the corner of a frame, almost as an afterthought. Waiters stand awkwardly, internalizing the circus before them.
"She's not doing anything," Mr. Nordeman said of the image of Ms. Knowles. "She's not expecting to be photographed. She wasn't with handlers or anyone. Is that the most compelling thing? No. But there she is alone for a second."
He said of his approach: "I love to work in a situation that is a controlled environment and try to shoot it in an uncontrolled way."
Mr. Nordeman, who cites the Bronx street photographer Garry Winogrand as an influence, also favors flash, which he said can make the candid moments of an elite fashion spectacle all the more arresting.
"The flash heightens the intensity of what I'm seeing," he said. "With the naked eye it might look like there's not much going on, but when you hit it with the flash, it becomes a more dramatic version of itself."
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