Do Stuff That Keeps You Humble 📸
An interview with Chicago's Nolis Anderson
blog.forty-eight // No long introduction from me today.
Things have been relatively quiet in the studio this week, as the focus has been on packing and shipping our last batch of orders. In the meantime, we plan on sharing the remaining conversations from our “Twenty-Five Calls for 2025” series over the next several weeks.
And ICYMI: You can watch and/or listen to the audiovisual version of this project on our YouTube channel, as well as read all twenty-five interviews here.
On to Shua’s conversation with the incredibly talented Nolis Anderson, a photographer and creative director based right here in Chicago.
— NGL
P.S. Last blog, we wrote about starting over—while still taking time to give major projects their time in the sun. You can read it here.
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Nolis Anderson is a photographer and creative director based in Chicago, Illinois. He’s shot everything from album covers for artists (including Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa) to lookbooks for designers like Joe Freshgoods.
The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Shua Buhangin: Hey Nolis! What was your biggest win of 2024?
Nolis Anderson: I'm trying to remember…okay, I guess I got it.
So me and Joe [Freshgoods] go way back. He's been with New Balance for over five years now, and I've shot all of his New Balance collaborations. This last shoe that came out was basically an accumulation of everything that's been happening with him over the last five years.
If you look back at his first shoe that he did with NB versus this last one…this last [campaign] was called “Aged Well.” From a color perspective, the shoes are an aged version of the first collaboration.
We started all this just, like, in my studio with a simple backdrop—super easy, nobody in it. And the last one, we're in Paris shooting the lookbook for it. It was just a really cool moment.
Oh, shit—or did we do that in 2025? Were you asking for the biggest win of 2024 or 2025?
SB: 2024!
NA: I mean, I shot a lot of lookbooks in 2024. Sticking with the Joe stuff, the “Prom to Paris” lookbook that we did was cool. First and foremost, it was just a lookbook that we wasn't really expecting to blow up.
We used these guys who are pretty well known now—they're these twins. We shot them, and the images came out so clean and so nice. And they actually ended up using those photos in a gallery exhibition for New York Fashion Week. It was just super cool seeing those images blown up so large in a space full of other artists’ work and stuff.
We did two different lookbooks for that shoot and they both came out dope. The one that we didn't expect to blow up, blew up. The one that we did expect to blow up, didn’t. So, you know, sometimes you just kind of never know how these things will work out.
SB: That's cool.
NA: I wasn't able to go out there to see the gallery. But people were sending me videos and pictures and stuff like that. Seeing the process of them, like, hanging my photos up…they were huge, man. As big as me. So dope.
SB: That's so crazy. What is it like to see your work evolve from a hobby to now—when it’s your thing, your art form? And to the max now, too, given it's physical and shared in a space where other people are.
NA: Back in the day, it was never really something that I imagined I would do.
I went to traditional grad school. I got my doctor of pharmacy back then, and I was shooting as just a hobby. Because, you know, I didn't even really know that you could even have a real job as a photographer. I thought a photographer was just some old guy with glasses and a ponytail and a vest—or something like that.
I had the opportunity to take some time to fully commit to photography, and it just kind of snowballed into what it is today, really.
But last year wasn’t the first time I've had images blown up. I had a few shows that I've done for myself back in the day. I did another show at Soho House. Those were probably the second biggest.
The biggest one would probably be a few billboards back when I did Smino's album cover—they did a big billboard for that, I think. The one with Vic Mensa had one of those big digital billboards in Times Square. And then I had a huge one for Chance [the Rapper]—I shot the cover for his album The Big Day, and they put it on the side of a building downtown.
It's always cool to see your stuff in the environment, out in the open. Not just on a computer screen.
SB: I feel like that's what's really special about photography and film photography. The tangibility of it, to actually be able to physically touch it…it's something that just cannot be forgotten or abandoned.
NA: Yeah, I need to...I have some prints, but you know, I wanna, like, have physical prints of my entire portfolio this year. Just so if people ever wanna go through, I could hand them a book, and everything's already right there.
SB: That's awesome. So I know it's March already as we’re talking, but what are some of the things or learnings you’re focused on this year as you go further down your unique creative path?
NA: I think just establishing myself with clientele more—to kind of take on more initiative, more responsibilities. I think I was doing a little bit of that starting last year because I'm a little bit more than just a photographer.
I had some creative direction roles in the Kawhi Leonard shoot I did with New Balance and then the one I did with Dapper Dan. It wasn’t just we want you to just come in and execute this idea—which, you know, sometimes I do. This is more like, what's your concept? We want you to build out the deck, build things from the ground up.
I think it kind of has more of an impact on you and the project because you just feel like you did everything from scratch. So doing more of those things…and yeah, just being more involved in productions and doing everything kind of on a higher scale.
SB: Gotta find new ways to challenge yourself and grow. And learn. That's, like, the best part about it.
NA: Yep. I'm always—I got this big thing right here [picks up camera]. It's a Graflex Speed Graphic, large format camera.
I always told myself I would never get into large format, but here I am. I just like to do stuff that keeps me humbled. It reminds me that I'm not as good as I think I am.
You can keep up with Nolis’ journey here.
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