For the last three years, photographer Sinna Nasseri has been photographing the world’s frenetic red carpets, reimagining the genre through his playful style. Reflecting on his time spent on prestigious carpets from the Oscars to the Met Gala, Nasseri tells writer Gem Fletcher about lensing the most influential people in entertainment, navigating the unwritten rules and how, in reality, you never truly know if you got the shot.
Photographer Sinna Nasseri never set out to document the red carpet, but when Vogue invited him to shoot the Met Gala in 2022—covering for their regular, Daniel Arnold—it was impossible to turn down. “It was nerve-wracking,” Nasseri says about the assignment. “You’re unsure exactly what you can get away with. There are a lot of unwritten rules: how you’re supposed to act, places you can and can’t go and how close you can get to people. You have to feel it out, but I quickly realized that you can’t be shy if you want to get good pictures.”
Vogue allowed Nasseri to roam the entire Met Gala—from the iconic staircase to the inner sanctum—a privilege only entrusted to a small group of photographers annually. This freedom was a gift for Nasseri, whose best work is often made in transitional moments, when his subjects are away from the spotlight and can let their guard down. “You have to be ready and know exactly when to jump into action,” says Nasseri, who captured many revealing moments that year, from a bored Amy Schumer sitting in a quiet corner to Christine Baranski’s regal death stare at Elon Musk.
Nasseri is no stranger to high-pressure environments. The Los Angeles-based photographer has covered everything from fashion week to the Republican National Convention. This year alone, he went from being on the front line of the LA fires to documenting Donald Trump’s inauguration and the Golden Globes before heading to the carpet at the Sundance Film Festival. While others may struggle shifting between such contrasting assignments, each placing a different demand on the body and mind, Nasseri thrives in this nomadic state, preferring to go where the universe is pulling him.
What makes the red carpet distinct from other assignments is that photographers have very little control. Space and time are limited. You never know when celebrities will arrive or what mood you will find them in, so preparation is critical. “When I first enter the space, I’m looking at everything, trying to find where the beauty is,” Nasseri tells me. “What can I play with? How can I add more elements into my photos? How do the elements relate to each other? How do I make the people look beautiful while also finding the candid moment? I can’t set up shots per se, but you’re looking at how you can shape all the variables and find something different.”
Nasseri’s recent image of Zendaya at this year’s Golden Globes illuminates his process. He paired the warm hue of a decadent glass chandelier with the auburn tones of the actor’s dress, conjuring a sense of harmony that he then subverted with a dramatic low angle, singling her out in the crowd and imbuing her with a kind of monumental beauty. Likewise, Nasseri took a risk and dragged the shutter while approaching Billy Bob Thorton, who turned around and winked straight into his lens. “It’s these moments when everything comes together,” he says fondly. “It’s no longer just you; the person collaborates, offering a perfect pose that gives the image a feeling of intimacy and makes the risk worth it.”
Taking risks is intrinsic to the Iranian-American photographer’s storytelling. He is known for his ability to complicate a frame, layering it with incongruous details and gestures to reveal more about the moment. This irreverence is strangely alluring, replicating a sense of what it feels like to be alive in our hyperconnected world. Nasseri is often the outsider on the red carpet—while most photographers are tasked with capturing images with clean backgrounds, his mandate is cultivating chaos and taking chances in an attempt to say something new about Hollywood culture.
“I really relate to that William Eggleston quote, ‘I am at war with the obvious,’” Nasseri says when I ask him about his motivations. “I have no interest in recreating shots that have already been made. I want to try to make something new. Maybe that’s naive, but I must believe it’s possible and keep trying.”
While Nasseri is now well versed in the nuances of the red carpet, having attended two Met Galas and two Golden Globes and approaching his third Oscars, he says the assignment doesn’t get any easier, with each year posing its own unique challenges. “Sometimes stars take 20 minutes to walk the carpet, stopping to do interviews and pictures, and it gives you time to get different angles, or they might run into someone they know, and then you get the opportunity to capture this genuine human moment. Other times, stars walk through and don’t stop, so you’re walking backwards while they walk towards you, trying to get something interesting along with all the other photographers. Last year at the Oscars, a lot of the biggest nominees came right at the end, and it was chaos. The opportunities to make a picture all come down to circumstances.”
So, how do you know if you got the shot? “You never really know,” Nasseri says with honesty. “Half the people in the comments say, ‘Wow, this is awesome and different,’ while the other half describe the work as ‘horrible.’ It’s all subjective, but I prefer to elicit a strong reaction. At the end of the day, the stakes are high. You’re shooting manually, everything is happening quickly, and your editor needs the images in ten minutes. People often think this work is all glamor and drinking champagne,” he laughs. “It’s more like running around sweating, hoping something magical will happen.”
