You may know Mark Romanek as an influential filmmaker. He is known for Never Let Me Go or One Hour Photo. Along with his big screen titles, he is also a music video Director for pop culture icons like Taylor Swift, Jay Z and Janet Jackson.

At one point in his career, Romanek realized who he surrounded himself with.
Seeing an opportunity, he decided to add to his film archives. Using a Contax P2 camera he started capturing candid photos of the talented people around him. He had no purpose or intention, it was to simply document his lifestyle. He kept these black and white photos in a box for about 20 years, now feeling the urge to do something with them.

After meeting Sarah Adelman, the co-founder and creative director of Colette, there was talk of turning the images into a book. Until then he has agreed to Adelman exhibit them at Colette.

For Mark Romanek, the images feel like a capture of an era of the people we only see one side of. He says “These are simple and inelegant: only one shot. After that, people get self-conscious and it all becomes something different. It has to happen within the first five seconds.”