Isabella is one of my favorite people to work with. She now works in marine conservation and can frequently be found swimming with sharks off the coast of Florida. I have more to say but I’m doing this from my phone so I’ll come back to this.
Get an original print from my last show…
Last year, along with @TrokonV and @sisi_hood, I exhibited in a group show at @1043MixedMedia gallery in DTLA.
I had a really hard time deciding if I wanted to show Love & Lust photos or a new body of work. I decided, with 3 days left before the show, to show the new things I’d been working on. I selected 6 of my favorite multiple exposures to create a cohesive theme, and showcase the recent developments in my practice. At the show I received lots of interest in the pieces but I didn’t have prices set. A few months after the show @brentpalmer hit me to see if the original of @domchanel was still available. I had just put them in storage because I really didn’t have anywhere to put seven 40”x30” prints in my house. It was my first ever $1000 art sale and got me excited to do more printing.
Now, a year after first presenting my double exposure series, I’m raffling off the original prints. Some have a few scuffs and scratches and they STILL look amazing and lustrous. I decided to do a raffle to make it purchasing my art more accessible for people who may not typically be able to afford it.
Each order for raffle tickets comes with a randomly selected postcard print from the series. Every order of 2 or more tickets comes with a free copy of 2 the double exposure zine series that is currently available for purchase on my site. The winner of each print will be selected via a randomizer and will not need to pay shipping for delivery.
If you’ve ever wanted to own a piece of artwork made by a Black artist, or have always loved my work, this is a great chance to own something beautiful by me, and to support me in making my next book.
Rules and regs
Weekly raffles, purchase a ticket any day monday thru sunday of each week to be entered.
Shipping costs are included with each winning ticket.
Each raffle starts on Thursday and ends the following Thursday.
Winners will be announced Friday.
Click here to enter the raffle
https://shop.chrispaulthompson.com/products/bc-30x40-original-print-raffle-ticket
Thank you
Chris Paul Thompson.
Nyah in NYC
Nyah in NYC

One of my favorite things to do is go to people houses and take photos of them. That was the theme and core idea of my first book Love and lust, intimate portraits in people’s homes. People being comfortable being themselves.
The first text Nyah sent me was “Hiya it’s Nyah.” I instantly liked her even more cause that’s a great greeting. I was a little late to the shoot cause I schlept a 50 lb light and stand, a 40lb back pack with my film cameras, and my pelican with my camera and laptop from Brooklyn to the upper west side via train. I was really tryna be a New Yorker and get the real feel. I probably should’ve bought gloves but we can’t always be prepared, sometimes we gotta go with the flow and narrowly avert frost bite. When I finally got to her place it was the cutest apartment I’ve been to in Manhattan. She had great decore including a lot of art she made herself. One of the first things I noticed was her video games so I promptly challenged her to Mario Kart. More on that later.
In this post I’m only sharing the film photos. Prior to the shoot, and another reason I was late, I took a trip to Photodom to get some good ol Porta 400 or Kodak good 200, 120 film. To my dismay they were out of both but they did have Cinestill 400d. I hadn’t shot any since i ordered from their Kickstarter. Never got the 220 but they sent the extra rolls. I want to try it in 4x5 sheets next. Anyway, I shot one roll with Shay and one with Nyah. When I got home from New York, I got super sick after I walked my dog a mile in the rain like a fool. The day after I recovered I decided I had to develop the film that day because I got some bad news and any time I’m fucked up I like to do art to calm down. During the fires in LA this year I packed my go bag and developed to rolls so they had enough time to dry if we needed to evacuate. I’m weird I know but it helps. Those pics were fire too, so yeah. I was too thirsty to see what I’d shot so instead of getting some new chems I used my kinda old Cinestill c41 developer that I hadn’t used since Jan 8th type shit. The chems were super dirty and kind of scared the film but Nyah liked it so I love it.
I’m still considering teaching film photo, lighting, and developing your own film. If you’re interested send me a message on IG or an email so I can force myself to start the classes. Would love to meet and develop with more creatives and build a bit of community to help each other explore and actualize our ideas.
Beauty shots with Ezenwa
I had the pleasure of photographing the beautiful and talented Ezenwa recently with the help of Johanna.
I styled her in things I pulled from d.bleu.dazzled to give her a shine.
These are some of my favorite beauty shots I’ve done. I had an outside retoucher retouch for the first time in a long time and I like the results
We even took a few test shots to submit to Fenty Beauty since I had been asked to bid a job there and I wanted to get some practice in doing clean beauty.
You can follow her on Instagram at https://instagram.com/ezenwailabor
A week in Spain. Ibiza Formentera and Barcelona.
Recently I took a trip to Spain to capture my friends engagement. We stayed at Bless Hotel, which had beautiful views from the room and the rough top, as well as a infinity pool with a view of the ocean and beach. I spent most of my time there by the beach listening to the waves and enjoying the optionality of clothing. The first day I stayed mostly in and around the hotel. I walked through the neighborhood in es Cana and looked for souvenirs for Nai, explored playa beach and saw a little kiddie carnival. I started to suspect that I wasn’t in the party part of Ibiza.
I headed back to the beach behind the hotel and rested before the scout the next day
The proposal was going to be at Hotel Petunia, so I head over there to scout the day before this was my favorite place on the trip beautiful accommodations delicious food and amazing drinks to go along with a spectacular view I got there around 5 and stayed til around sunset at 10pm. The bartender let me know that I indeed was not in the party part of town. He advised me to go to San Antonio and visit Amnesia if I wanted to have s great time at the disco. I was on my fourth drink that had passion fruit and pop rocks so I decided not to go club, but I did take one for the road
The next day we returned to Petunia and They got engaged! It was beautiful I made some friends while I was waiting for them to arrive and ended up having a great time even though a taxi issue had the couple running behind schedule.
The next day we took the Ibiza Boat Club to Formentera and bicycled 6 miles to a beautiful beach and swam and chilled. When we got bike to the boat they had a fire and saxophonist who played music while we boated and partied all the way back to the port then we headed into old town Ibiza also know as ibizatown. The setting is so charming there’s a port and hundreds of shops all together along winding walking alleys with restaurants in between. The mix off food and incense from the shops was captivating. We ended up having dinner at a place outside of a set of shops that looked like an old fort.
The last day was spent in Barcelona where I immediately went to the Picasso Museum, which I busted my first time in Spain. I went specifically to get one of the striped shirts I wanted and passed on the last time. Got there just before closing but I got it!
I was planning to sleep because I had an early flight but then my friend said they were going to the restaurant/club that our boat buddies from Ireland suggest. The music at Carpe Diem was great and we ended up club hopping to a few places along the way. I ended up getting home 3 hours before my flight so I packed my bag drank some coffee and went to the airport.
Was a great reset and I got some great photos.
Ibiza on 120
Ibiza Formenta and Barcelona digital photos.
iPhone photos from Spain.
Alicia Roxas at chrisp.studio
I recently got to work with model / poet Alicia Roxas on a personal project. We shot pieces designed by Destiney Bleu and Andre Emery. We’d been talking about shooting for a while and she had just finished releasing her work out program Curve. I shot a little bit of film and some digital plus a cool video I shared on Instagram. These are the shots I took with my RZ67. I developed and scanned all the film at my studio. If you ever need a great place to shoot and create check out chrisp.studio
Set Stills, the making of Andscape’s Starkeisha
I had the pleasure of capturing the process of creating the Hulu/Andscape film for writer and Director Mo Mcrae. Over the 7 days of shooting we went from the desert, to a office park, to a huge warehouse studio where they created another world, and finished in a mirrored box. The lead actress Dom Chanel was able to channel so many emotions in her acting debut. She’s an experienced performer which she shows in every dance scene. We also got to work with legendary actress Vanessa Bell Calloway.
The days were long and super busy. I was doing video and photos, so it was difficult toting things around but I was getting really great footage and photos because the locations and lighting were amazing. The hardest day was the dance scene near the building with the crane a lot of moving parts and coordination. Seeing playback from the first day had everyone excited.
The last scene on the first day was one of the most intense scenes to shoot. The wind was picking up and whiping everything on set around as they rolled the final take. Dom dropped to her knees with a single tear that rolled down her cheek. It was a powerful and impactful way to finish her first day as a star in a film.
I learned a lot about what needs to be done to prepare a fight scene and how much detail goes into preparing for visual effects. I spent a lot of time talking to Nick who did the effects we discussed their process and I got to have a one on one with the fight coordinator. We didn’t fight I just interviewed him about what the camera sees and how to make fights feel real.
We shot the final portion a few months after shooting the first pieces, which gave them time to build an amazing set piece. The mirrored room really created a striking mind bending moment.
Here’s the bts video I filmed.
If you haven’t seen it go watch
Harpist Madison Calley Press Photos
Madison Calley was a wonderful subject to work with. She had a natural ease and grace. This was the first time I’d ever had to load and unload a harp, it’s quite a task, that Madison does for every performance. Fortunately there’s a roll up garage access at my studio. While we shot, I got to hear some of her beautiful music and learned about some of her recent musical releases. I lit the shots to look like an old Hollywood glamorous headshot. Photos from this shoot appeared in a feature about her on the Grammy’s website after her recent performance with Beyoncé.
