Kremer/Johnson Gives New Meaning to the Trope "Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder"

We often boast how photography duo Kremer/Johnson are neither boring nor one dimensional. Their talent lies in their ability to view everything through a conceptual lens and from there, creative narratives are born. Additionally, Kremer/Johnson’s collective creative mind allows for an alternate way of thinking and in their work they aim to shine a light on alternate meanings. 

Their imagery will make you stop and think, hopefully laugh but above all, make you question the status quo. “Eye of the Beholder” is a personal project that does just that. With the production value of a full blown advertising shoot and Inspired by the Twilight Zone episode, Kremer/Johnson aims to impose a satirical look at lifestyle photography. Typically, lifestyle photography focuses on beautiful people using products that in turn, make them happy. Neil and Cory wanted to push this further and pose the question “what if the models were beautiful in their own eyes?”. When we first saw this project, our questions abound, so we asked Neil and Cory all about it

What did you learn while creating this project?

That sometimes it’s a whole lot of fun to do stuff only for the purpose of satisfying your own creative curiosities. We ended up spending a lot of money on talent and hiring a well known special effects makeup artist to have the highest production value we could. We know this project is bizarre, but once we started getting positive feedback from creatives, we knew the investment was worth it. 

What was a memorable moment?

Once the shoot wrapped, we all headed out to dinner – makeup and all. The look from the other patrons when the models had to lift up their mouth flap is something we will never forget. 

What do you hope people will learn about you and your work after viewing this?

That we can tackle multi-layer concepts. Developing a narrative and taking it as far as we can with concept and our general sensibilities is something we pride ourselves in. We are lucky, as a duo, to have double the inspiration on shoots and bounce ideas off of one another. We are constantly “yes and-ing” each other, and it’s what works for us. And that we have a sense of humor.

Follow Kremer/Johnson on Instagram for more story-telling scenes.