12 Exposures - Episode 7: Riley Harper

A fourth-generation Californian born into the film industry, Riley has been performing stunts since he was seven and has since appeared in numerous productions, including the *Dark Knight* and *Marvel* films, *Once Upon a Time in Hollywood*, and *Top Gun: Maverick*. He is best known for his work with vehicles—a skill that stemmed from motocross racing, which he took up at the age of four. In addition to his career on set, he has always carried a camera with him. He photographs travel, lifestyle, and automotive stories using a mix of analog and digital Leicas, with a keen sense of atmosphere, nostalgia, and authenticity, and today he stages campaigns for brands in the automotive, fashion, hotel, and lifestyle worlds. Driven by curiosity, craftsmanship, and a love for romanticizing everyday life, Riley brings a personal and deeply lived-in perspective to everything he photographs.

1. You just got back from a month in Europe. Where did you end up, and was there one place that stood out for photography?

We were on the road all over the place, working on a whole range of different jobs: Portugal, Italy, France—and the whole time in different cities across all those countries. Mostly photography work, plus a project with Porsche in Portugal for a car launch. Florence stands out for photography, partly because I was just there. Every time I’m in that city, the light makes it special. I don’t know how Florence is laid out, but in the late afternoon you get these streaks of light streaming down through the alleys. Many cities have that, but in Florence there’s so much grit and texture on the walls—everything is very weathered. The light in this city is simply fantastic.

2. How much equipment did you bring with you, and does working with fewer cameras or a single lens make you more creative?

I probably had a total of five or six cameras with me—a mix of analog and digital. I usually bring more than I need. Then, depending on how I’m feeling, where I am, and what I’m doing, I tend to stick with one or two cameras—one digital and one analog. On this trip, I switched back and forth between two of them the whole time. My bag took quite a beating—I used it the entire month I was in Europe. As for limitations: definitely. I used to do this much more often, and depending on the project or trip, self-restriction really helps. For example, I was at the historic Grand Prix in Monaco, which is all about vintage cars. I took this photo here with a Leica equipped with a 50-millimeter lens. It was the only lens I had with me because I wasn’t allowed to bring more than one camera to the race. So I only had my M11-P with a 50-millimeter lens, and that was the only focal length I used to take photos. In some ways, it was very limiting, but it was really fun because it made me think a little differently about how I would capture certain things. It takes a lot of the decision-making out of your hands and forces you to work with what’s right in front of you. That’s why I sometimes like restrictions like that.

3. If you could keep only one camera for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

It's so hard. I have an emotional attachment to certain cameras and a practical one to others. But strangely enough, I always keep coming back to the Leica Q2. The Q system is so straightforward and performs so well in every situation. I’ve always been an M photographer—and still am—but in situations where I need versatility, I tend to reach for the Q. If I had to choose just one camera, the Q is simply perfect. It works everywhere. It’s such a simple camera, yet it covers every situation. My emotional attachments are a mix of the photos I’ve taken with a camera and the feeling the camera gives me when I use it. The analog Leica MP is a camera I’ve wanted ever since I first owned an M6 as a teenager: a black-lacquered MP that would be mine and would break in, fade, and age over time. About two or three years ago, I finally bought one. This is the camera I’m most emotionally attached to. I simply love it. It’s the one I’ve always wanted, and when I take pictures with it, I do so very deliberately and very consciously.

4. When you're traveling to visually stunning places, how do you decide what's worth photographing?

To be honest, I'm not the kind of photographer who stages a lot of things. I take photos for myself, and I think other people can sense that. People have a really good sense of what's real. So when I’m taking photos in a hotel and I’m there to experience the hotel, I first and foremost truly experience the place and then photograph what I see. That’s the opposite of doing things just to photograph them and experiencing them only during the shoot. I want to do the most beautiful things for myself and then capture those moments. These moments can only seem real because they are real. I’m very sensitive to inauthentic moments. It’s very easy to tell when something isn’t lived and genuine. So not staging anything and simply being truly present is the best way.

5. How did photography come into your life in the first place?

If I really think back: I grew up in California and rode my motorcycle and skateboard a lot. When I wasn’t in school, I spent the whole day at the skatepark with my friends. I remember making skateboard videos and taking photos of my friends—always with a small point-and-shoot camera, an old camera that belonged to my mom and was tucked away in a closet somewhere in the house. I’d get the film developed at a store called Costco here and get the pictures back about two weeks later. Then digital photography came along—I had these little digital cameras, and I just always had a camera with me.

That led to traveling the world and working as a stuntman on movies. Before Instagram, especially, I’d go on surfing trips throughout the year—to Indonesia as a teenager—and the only way to document a trip was with a digital camera. I’d come home, plug it into my computer, and show my family a slideshow of the trip, because back then there was no other way to send photos. There was never just one turning point. It’s always been a constant in my life. I studied it in high school and learned the darkroom side of things, but really, it was just a matter of always having a camera with me from around the age of ten or twelve. To me, a camera is a tool. It’s a tool for capturing moments, and it always has been. I try to keep it that way and not get too caught up in the technical aspects of cameras. The important part is doing things that are real and authentic, and then having a camera to capture them.

6. You've spent most of your career working as a stuntman. Where does creativity come into play in that?

That's the misconception about stunts. There are a few pretty simple ones, like driving this car into that other car or whatever it may be. But most of the time, it's very precise. There’s a very specific requirement that comes from the script and the director, and then you work with a whole team of people, sometimes for months, to create a sequence. You help them design the shots creatively so that they look as dynamic and intense as what we want to portray in the film. You work with other departments—cameramen, special effects people, the director, and a whole team of stunt performers—all toward a single result. It’s sometimes a very long process. You’re constantly honing your creativity by finding ways to do things in the safest and most dynamic way possible. Every day you’re designing a sequence, so you’re constantly exercising that muscle.

7. Does this background influence the way you take photos?

Definitely. I grew up on film sets—some of the biggest in the world—surrounded by amazing creative people. I was always on set, watching the camera, figuring out how they captured things, and surrounded by great directors and cinematographers. No matter what kind of photographer you are, it’s your own life experience that shapes how you take pictures. I photograph things very differently from people who’ve never worked on a film, because I’ve had this perspective for more than twenty years of my life. You can’t help but draw from that experience. In automotive photography, for example, I do a lot of stunt driving. That’s why, as a photographer, I always try to photograph cars not only as a photographer but also from the driver’s perspective—because that’s a perspective I know really well. Having that extra lens to look through—knowing what I want from the driver to make it look dynamic, and then photographing it in a way that amplifies all of that—it’s good to have these multiple perspectives. The two worlds also differ dramatically in scale. You can’t compare the chaos of a movie set to any kind of photo shoot. I’ve done a lot of larger campaign shoots, and having thirty to fifty people on set is very easy for me to manage because I’m used to dealing with around three hundred people. When the shoot is smaller, it feels effortless.

8. If you had to choose one motif that you keep coming back to, which one would it be?

I think it depends on the place. There’s nothing better than arriving at a completely new place. I love lifestyle photography—which is what my Instagram has evolved into over time—because I always try to live my life in a way that feels like a vacation and to keep it beautiful. I can’t help but want to romanticize things, make them look as beautiful as possible, and go to places that I find truly beautiful. So travel photography in general—and the hotels I’ve photographed over the years—bringing a perspective that’s very subjective and authentic—that’s probably my favorite thing, if I had to pick just one. I want people to feel like they’re actually there. If I can achieve that, I’m happy. My travel photography was never intended to sell a place or convince people to travel somewhere. But for years, I’ve been returning to places I’ve photographed and running into people on the street who say they’re there because they saw my photos. It happens all the time. I like to call myself an “unintentional influencer.”

9. You also run the Nostalgia Killer account. What is it, and what does it mean to you?

Nostalgia Killer was a purely personal Instagram account that I started around 2019. I've always loved old photography. I’d save screenshots on my phone of things I came across, take photos in old books, and I have so many photo books. I didn’t see much of that on Instagram back then, so I had this private account as my very own database of cool old photos that I loved, and I was constantly adding to it. I don’t even know why I called it Nostalgia Killer. Looking at old photos felt very nostalgic to me, but I also know that nostalgia isn’t a good thing—it can keep you stuck in the past. It was a private account, so the name didn’t matter. Then I got bored during COVID, made it public, and started posting; people started following it, and it turned into what it is today.

The photos came from all over the place. When I was younger and traveling, I’d take a photo with my old iPhone of some random old picture hanging on the wall of a café. It could have been anything. I just love history and old things, and seeing places I love from a different era. I love Portofino—I got married there; it’s one of my favorite little towns—and I love seeing old photos of Portofino from the early 1940s, with people filming movies there. It’s nostalgic and fun. It’s not even a brand—it’s just something random I did for fun. But I started selling products: hats, travel backgammon boards—things I wanted for myself. And a few music playlists in that general spirit that went pretty viral on Spotify. Tons of people loved them. It’s a little creative outlet.

10. You take a lot of analog photos. What does film offer you that digital can't?

It’s the same for everyone: If you grew up with film, it stays with you. What’s really cool is that many younger people started out with digital and discovered film later on—which is unique. Most people used to shoot analog, but then it became such a hassle that they switched to digital and said they’d never shoot analog again. That was me for a long time. I stopped shooting analog, then just started doing it again for fun. I shot a roll of film and had forgotten how wonderful it is when you’re so used to digital, so I rediscovered it and started using it more.

Then brands started to love it. For some projects, I shot a few rolls of film and mostly digital, and sent everything together without telling them which shots were analog and which were digital. They always chose the analog shots without me saying a word. So I started shooting more of it because I knew that was the look people wanted. I think people were longing for it a little bit because everything had been so digital for so long. Now it’s swung the other way, and everyone’s shooting analog. It’s a strange shift. A digital product doesn’t really make you feel anything. Typing on a computer instead of in a notebook is cleaner and easier to copy, paste, and save, but I quickly become numb to it. The whole reason anyone loves analog photography is that it forces you to slow down. It makes you appreciate every shot, instead of taking too many photos and hoping something good will come of it. It makes you think more.

11. Is there a photographer who has had the greatest influence on your approach to photography?

There are so many, and this is such a cliché—because everyone would probably say the same thing—but I can’t deny it: Slim Aarons had an enormous influence on me when I was younger. A lot of people don’t discover him until later in life. I don’t even remember the first time I came across one of his books, but I think it was in my high school photography class, where there was a stack of photography books. I remember flipping through his work and feeling the power of photography for the first time.

I’m such a fan of nostalgia. I don’t think anyone has captured it as well as he did—weaving it so seamlessly into the lives of these different people around the world and photographing it in such a beautiful, simple way. Nothing was ever overdone. It was simply about capturing people in their moment—moments that were sometimes very unique and over-the-top, with unique families in unique places. It’s a cliché, but he probably had the biggest influence on my desire to do the same thing: to make people feel photography, rather than just look at it. That matters more today. People’s sense of what’s fake is very keen, and with AI and everything else, people just want a genuine feeling and a genuine experience when they look at photography.

12. Is there anything else you'd like to share with aspiring photographers and our community?

For aspiring photographers, the key word in this whole conversation is: authenticity. Everyone is a photographer. Everyone has an eye for it. Maybe not everyone is a professional photographer, but everyone has the chance to be a photographer, and everyone should be one, because it’s the best creative outlet. Photograph what you love. That’s all that really matters. Almost everyone carries a camera with them every day—on their cell phone—and that’s all you need to capture the moment.