Brad Walsh

My Latest Project

For several years I have been wanting to put together a book of photographs that I’ve taken of my friend Anna. And now, it’s happening.

I met her not too long after I moved to New York. She was a club kid who went to a lot of the same parties I went to, only she dressed up and painted her face differently every single night for years. This “cherubic blonde with a passion for the flash” (from the Village Voice review of my first gallery show) went by “Anna Rexia” before she got tired of the city and moved to the country. Now she’s just: Anna.

As a novice photographer, then a nightlife photographer, then a portrait photographer, I was always snapping her as we got ready to go out. A different face for every night. She has always been my favorite person to shoot: awkwardly comfortable in front of a lens, striking a classical pose and then pulling her nostrils apart with her fingers, simultaneously grotesque and stunningly beautiful. A real girl turned into a real woman who has always known she is special.

It was time for my archives to be pillaged. I selected hundreds from thousands upon thousands of images of Anna for this book. Four years of frequent snaps has given me a really incredible pool of images of her, and I can’t wait until everybody gets to see the collection!

(That’s not going to be the book cover, by the way.)