Lifestyle Mirror

Even as digital technology advances onward, the young keep finding ways to call out to the past. With Instagram’s nostalgic filters shedding light on 21st century happenings, and keenly referential (or is it reverential?) music gaining ground with the likes of Mayer Hawthorne and Mark Ronson, there’s got to be something in the water.

But among those who quietly push the vanguard of vintage-modern contemporaneity is the self-taught, Los Angeles-based photographer, director, and filmmaker Neil Krug. At 29, Krug is already well known for his psychedelic album art and promo videos for bands like My Chemical Romance, Devendra Banhart, and Ladytron; but it’s Krug’s photography—best exemplified in his books Pulp Art Book: Volume One and Two—that declares his penchant for the rough romance of spaghetti westerns and the sun-drenched effects of expired Polaroid film. With the second volume in the series of three set to release in October, Krug’s take on a raw, 1960’s aesthetic promises to be even richer.

“Whatever reservations Joni and I had during the making of the first book, didn't exist on any level for this volume,” Krug says. Like the first, Volume Two uses a combination of digital technique and vintage cameras to portray model Joni Harbeck (who’s also Krug’s wife) as a number of characters in various scenarios, a la Cindy Sherman. While the couple’s favorite character, “Jackie,” makes her comeback, new scenes come to life in the erosional landscapes of Death Valley and in the form of Poliziotteschi-inspired Italian crime sub-genre vignettes.

“One thing we always keep in mind is that the viewer is looking at an entire book that features the same girl from start to finish,” Krug explains. “So Joni and I always find ways to disguise and disfigure how she normally looks.” But even when the real Harbeck occasionally peeks through while wielding an automatic rifle or crouching with a bow and arrow, the fantasy is hardly forgotten.

“The way the artists portrayed women as forces to be reckoned with is something I'll always find sexy and cool,” Krug says of his tough subjects and pulp influences. “I think we're losing sight of something when everyone wants to see girls with popsicles in their mouth.”

But Harbeck, it seems, isn’t Krug’s only muse for strong female characters. Also on the docket for fall are two new projects with model Lauren Marie Young and actress Nathalie Kelley, as well as Krug’s first feature film, Invisible Pyramid, starring Kalee Forsythe and Ainsley Burke.

Still, with plenty already on the horizon, Krug shows no signs of slowing down. “Once it’s [Invisible Pyramid] finished, I hope to crank out new films all the time. I have loads of ideas that are just waiting to see the light of day.” Whenever his new work may come to fruition, it's bound to be right on time. —Sasha Levine (@sashalevine)