Noah Johnson and Tina Vines - A Couple of Chainstitchers
A few years back while I was still living on the east coast I was looking around the inter webs to find someone who did custom chainstitch embroidery. I love it. I have always loved it, I think it’s such a cool art form and it makes clothing into a wearable art piece. My search led me to @stitchrite on Instagram or Noah Johnson as fellow humans of earth call him. I had him make a custom jumpsuit with my name on the front and my business name on the back. Shown here:
When I got the jumpsuit in I was so impressed with his work that I told him the next time I was in Los Angeles I’d love to take a portrait of him. Well, I moved to LA the following spring but then the pandemic happened and all that jazz, so we finally made the portrait session a reality a few years after the fact. I actually ran into Noah and Tina at the Long Beach Flea Market and we chatted a little bit and set something up in a few weeks. I went down to Noah and his partner Tina’s incredible apartment in Long Beach, California (think museum with perfectly placed vintage trinkets and adornments everywhere) and hung out for a few hours, shot the shit, had some drinks and shot some photos. They were just a joy to hang out with and shoot with. Such sweet people. And I love their style and look so much. Go check out their work on Instagram - @stitchrite and @tina_vines.
I said in a previous post I wanted to start sharing BTS images so here is my first one, this setup was used for both Noah and Tina’s portraits at their desks with their machines…little more info on those specifically - Noah uses a Singer 114w103 machine from the 1920’s and Tina uses a Cornely A from the 1910’s. So cool! Both machines are Bonnaz machines for chain stitch and chenile embroidery. I’m obsessed with old stuff, always have been.
As for the BTS, two lights on all these portraits pretty much. The BTS is from the seated portraits at their desks and that is one bouncing off the wall/ceiling for fill and a large photek softlighter at eye height as the key light. I normally wouldn’t use such a big light in a small space like this, I thought I had packed my smaller softlighter but I only brought big boys so I had to work with what I had. Lights were both Flashpoint EV200’s I love those little things and I shoot like 90% of my work with them. They can achieve almost anything. All photos were taken with a Phase One P65+ on a Mamiya DF+ with an 80mm 2.8 lens and a Canon 5DS with a 24-70mm 2.8 lens.
