Noah Shaub is an 18- year-old photographer from New York City, who is constantly capturing the lives of his fashionable friends around town. Born and raised in NYC, Noah has had his fair share of fabulous and interesting adventures which have fortunately been captured on film. Consistently being exposed to the highs and lows of living in the city, Noah has a distinct artistic eye that only a New York native could develop. Noah has been featured in publications like i-D magazine and commended for exemplifying the true essence of what it is like to be a part of the LGBTQ community. Aside from his party-filled photographs, Noah also uses his platform to document and advocate for imperative social justice movements like the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Period Movement (ending the tax on feminine hygiene products), and the fight against climate change.
Noah combines his intrinsic skills with his love of editing to create lively, color-filled photographs of his closest friends at his favorite spots. Starting off on Instagram, Noah has now transitioned a large part of his following over to TikTok. Showing behind the scenes of his work and playful personality on the video sharing app, his followers get an inside scoop on what it is like to shoot in New York. Noah has gained over 12,000 followers on TikTok and over half a million likes with his clips from fabulous photoshoots and his favorite finished images. Thrust into life in the Big Apple, Noah has spent his young adult life focusing on his photographic endeavours and advocating for change for others.
Sheesh Magazine had the opportunity to speak with Noah Shaub about his social media growth, experiences in NYC, and what message he wants to send with his photography.
Q: How did you get your start in photography?
Noah Shaub: Funny story actually, I used to run an Instagram account for my dog and I was always taking photos for her, she’s a cute little French Bulldog. I would take all these photos on my phone and stuff, and the Instagram account got like over a thousand followers, which is oddly popular for a dog account. I ended up getting a better camera to take really good photos of her with, but once that sort of died out I started taking photos of my friends. I just kept practicing and taking photography courses and overtime it became something that was such a huge part of my life to be like ‘the friend group photographer.’ Then I started getting jobs and publishing stuff, so I just started working for different activist groups and paid gigs and the rest is history.
Q: What photography style do you specialize in?
Noah Shaub: I think I mainly specialize in portraiture, I love taking pictures of people and I’ve tried to get into the other fields but I really love manipulating images with editing, so I feel like with documentary style that’s not as appropriate to do.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit more about your editing/post-production process?
Noah Shaub: Recently I’ve been really trying to get into editing a lot more than I used to, I started out with VSCO in the 2015/2016 era. My friends would always send me their Instagram photos and I would edit them for them, and it was always so fun and casual. I love spending time and manipulating colors and light in the photographs. Then I transitioned to Lightroom, where I really enjoyed creating my own presets and filters. I start with taking all the images I have and put them in Lightroom, then selecting an unorganized preset for them. I then take my favorites of the set and bring them into Photoshop. In Photoshop I add a lot of textures, and detailed images, like cutting up the subject and messing with the background to trip it out. It’s really all about trying to do things that people haven’t done before, Instagram is filled with very similar edits, and I feel like it’s really important to create an individualized collection of work. I really try to make my work standout from others with my editing and sometimes it’s a win, sometimes it’s not, but you gotta try. Stepping out of your comfort zone could lead to creating a trend or a new way of editing that everyone might follow.
Q: Your photos seem to emulate this glitzy, dreamy, NYC party life, could you tell us a little more about where this style comes from and how its true to you?
Noah Shaub: Throughout my life I have always been obsessed with photography and saw so many film photos even before film made a mainstream comeback. I was so infatuated with film photography, I realized that I needed to try to start shooting with film. I was going out a lot in high school and I’ve always lived in New York so the places and people I would see going out would always be really cool and intriguing and I just wanted to document my memories. I want to be a little old man and be able to look back at my youth with physical images and memories, with my kind of touch added to them. I try to showcase beauty and the glitz and glamour of my life, even if it isn’t always so glamorous. Not everyone’s Instagram is a representation of their lives, most people only show the highlights and I think a lot of people tend to get lost in that and I don’t want to make people think that my life is perfect and amazing, but it is my work. I try to find a happy balance where I show off my social justice work and my pretty, party life. I really want people to see New York as I do, because I love New York so much and I truly believe it will never die. I think it’s cool to have a nice and pretty picture of New York especially during these dark and scary times and I’m happy that I can give that to people.
Q: What exactly do you want to say with your photographs and how do you achieve the image you want?
Noah Shaub: I really want my work to showcase a sense of authenticity, I think even with the massive amounts of editing that goes into my work, I try to continuously shed light on the individual. In that moment, I know whoever I was photographing was being their truest form and not trying to put up a front for anyone. Most of my work really surrounds my friends so they really trust me and are comfortable being themselves around me. I have done so many series about queer teens in New York City and what they’ve been through. Even though they are in such a ‘liberal and accepting’ place they are often still very stigmatized for who they are. I try to show these raw images of people, but edited in a way that is clearly my work. The person rules the frame and the image, but a little of my touch gets added to it with the editing.
Q: What motivates you to continue taking your photos?
Noah Shaub: I think the biggest motivator for me is just the people who like my work, it’s so insane to me that I am using my Instagram platform that started as my personal Instagram, and people like my work and what I create. That is a huge motivator for me, and there have been so many times where it has been so difficult and now so many people are seeing my stuff and it’s a really incredible feeling. I think it’s so important to use my photography for good and maybe create a small change in the world with it, that is so important to me. Shedding light on political issues is a huge deal for me, and why I enjoy having a growing platform, but also just being able to have these photos of my youth for when I’m a little old man is really special to me. My photography is so intertwined with my life that being able to capture these moments is really special to my friends and I.
Q: How has the coronavirus pandemic changed the way that you work and your work itself?
Noah: I think that it was really hard on me and my work, especially because my work surrounds seeing people. It was very unmotivating at first and I felt like everything was bad and I was freaking out, I deleted all my socials and stayed away from my phone. I was just trying to figure out what my next move was. Then I started with Zoom shoots and I was trying to figure out how I could make that my own. I felt like I could use my editing skills and set my Zoom shoots apart from everyone else, so I was able to make the photos look like we were actually together. Then we kind of got to a point where we could kind of see people again and that really helped because I could photograph my close friends. It puts us creatives in kind of a tricky position, because I want to still create art that is interesting to me. It’s hard to this day; it’s like you don’t want to make people think you don’t care about the pandemic, but you also need to keep yourself sane somehow. I think it’s important for people to know that my friends and I are incredibly Covid safe and all of our shoots are as well.
Q: What is one change you would like to see be made in the photography industry?
Noah: One big change that I think is important is the hiring of Black photographers for mainstream magazines. It is so important to have these incredible Black photographers featured in these magazines, especially because it has been so whitewashed for so long. Yes, you do not see the photographers behind the photos but I think that having POC photographers in the industry is such an important aspect of the arts community. Just having different types of people hired for photography jobs like female photographers, LGBTQ photographers, etc. is so important to this industry. Another thing would be paying photographers fairly and giving them credit where credit is due. A lot of people take what photographers do for granted and don’t realize how much work goes into every shoot, so I think being paid and tagged fairly is something that needs to be changed.
Q: Do you have any photography inspirations or role models that you tend to follow?
Noah: I think my biggest influence right now is Nan Goldin, she’s a photographer who grew up in the 70s/80s and basically during her young adult life lived with drag queens during a time when it was so stigmatized, and not okay to be that way. Nan photographed all of these drag queens and queer people that she lived with and basically just documented her friends which essentially is what I am doing. Her entire archive is just these beautiful, innovative, uncensored photographs that really showcase that time period. During that time it was really, really dangerous and scary to be a person of the community or doing drag and she showcased the beauty of her friends rather than the evil and the hate that was surrounding them in society. This is essentially what I want to do with my work, by showing the beauty of my life and my friends’ lives instead of the bad times. She’s such a huge inspiration to me, and her work carries a lot of meaning and I really want my work to do the same.
Q: What’s next for you? Do you have anything exciting or innovative you’re working towards?
Noah: I think right now the main thing I’m working on is my website, and getting that launched. I am still working on all of the aspects of that, but I have a vision of how I want it to look and I want to be able to sell my presets and be able to have all of my work in one cataloged place. I think I’m just trying to keep doing what I’m doing and grow on social media, shoot with bigger people, and just get my name out there a little bit more. I just want my work to exist on the Internet, and I think a website is the first step in pushing that forward.
Stay up to date with Noah’s photography journey through his Instagram and TikTok, and keep a lookout for his website coming soon!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
