The only catch? One of them is on staff at W magazine. In this week’s edition, visuals editor Michael Beckert chats with Ronan Mckenzie, who has shot cover stars like Solange, Serena Williams, and FKA Twigs. Lately, though, she's been turning deeply inward—posting a series of portraits featuring herself and her partner in quarantine on her Instagram account.
The last year or so, I've been working within color stories. It started with my love and appreciation of brown growing over the last couple of years. A lot of the work that I've been doing in the last year is all within brown, blue and white palettes. Those are the colors that I like to work in the most.It's really important to me that, if I'm shooting more than one person, there's some sort of connection: they know each other, or they're friends, or they're a couple.
I really just make sure that the things that I can control, like the light, and if I have a little input on styling or whatever I can say, I've said. I also make it quite clear when I'm coming into those situations with celebrities, what the image is going to be for me and that there has to be a level of flexibility. I've turned down many shoots with different celebrities or big personalities because I didn't feel I was going to be able to collaborate.