A Gothic Beauty

The Practice — Est. MMXVI

A Gothic Beauty is the work of one person in love with the dark and the light inside it.

I'm DeAndre Bailey Pope. I started A Gothic Beauty in Dallas in January 2016, and I still make all of it myself: the photographs, the garment prints, the record sleeves. The picture always comes first. Everything else is there to help it.

A low-angle portrait in a bucket hat and white crop top against a blue glass tower — from the BALENCI study — Fig. ABALENCI — Urban portrait

Six house rules

How I work

Rule I
Take things away

Most pictures get better when something leaves the frame. I'd rather show you one great image than six good ones.
Rule II
Start with black

I build every image in shadow first. Color comes in later, and only when it has something to say.
Rule III
The picture comes first

Captions, frames, and motion are here to serve the work. The moment they get in its way, they go.
Rule IV
Dark is not empty

A dark frame is full of choices: where the light lands, what it leaves out, how long your eye wants to stay.
Rule V
Say it clearly

If you can't read it, it isn't beautiful yet. No texture or effect gets to make the words harder to follow.
Rule VI
Sign your work

I don't make content. I make pictures I'm proud to put my name on.

Eight disciplines

What I make

Editorial photography01
Fashion imagery & styling direction02
Beauty & portrait studies03
Retouching & color grade04
Art direction & sequence05
Cover & identity design06
Printed matter & lookbooks07
Commissioned visual essays08

BALENCI, in sequence

One person walks through concrete, rail, steel, glass, shadow, and open sky, and the series never loses its line.

A close portrait in a bucket hat on concrete steps, eyes lowered, hand in the hair — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIConcrete

Crouched mid-stairway on wide steel-railed steps, in a bucket hat and khaki cargos — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIRail

Full length against a corrugated metal wall in khaki cargos and white sneakers, one arm folded — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCISteel I

A low-angle, wide-legged stance before corrugated metal, khaki cargos running down to chunky white sneakers — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCISteel II

A side-turned portrait in warm raking light against ribbed metal, gold chains at the neck — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCISteel III

A crouched figure in amber sunlight, doubled by a glass reflection, beside a white fountain — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIGlass

A tilted frame of a crouching figure reaching for the pavement, a reflected hat ghosting above — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIShadow

Seated on a white patio chair, seen at a tilt past a blurred carved frame — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIStructure I

Leaning back in a white patio chair, one sneaker on a table, before a parking garage — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIPassage

A low-angle portrait gripping the back of a white chair in a granite courtyard — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIStructure II

A seated figure reflected in a carved white mirror propped between two courtyard fountains — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIOpen frame

Seated on a concrete ledge against a tan block wall, a blue glass tower rising behind — from the BALENCI sequence — BALENCIOpen sky

A short chronology

Archive, MMXVI–MMXXVI

MMXVI

The studio opens

A Gothic Beauty begins in January with one room, one camera, one hard light, and no interest in the obvious.

MMXIX

The working archive begins

I start keeping everything: contact sheets, tests, the frames that almost worked. The process turns out to be part of the work.

MMXXII

Radiant and Rouge — the warm exceptions

Two tests taken out of the studio: golden hour in a field, then a red coat on city brick. They prove the look is a way of seeing, not a filter.

MMXXIII

Perry — color as threat

The red room. For the first time color does the frightening, and oxblood joins the house palette for good.

MMXXIV–V

Purity and Secret — the triad closes

Water, then white, finish what the red room started. Those three studies become the backbone of the archive.

MMXXVI

Nocturnal — the archive opens

Lace, flash, and skin. And the archive opens to the public for the first time, in three chapters.

I take on a few commissions each season.

Ask about one

Editorial, campaign, and identity. Dallas / remote.