The hedonism of James D. Kelly: “the camera is like a cloak of invisibility”

Looking back, nightlife photographer James D. Kelly recalls a couple of photos he took in his youth that he still finds impressive. One of them was a nude portrait of his stepfather – Kelly asked his stepfather to lie in a fetal position on a large rock in the ocean while Kelly scrambled up a cliff to get the shot of waves lapping ferociously at his stepfather’s body. “It was the middle of winter, too,” Kelly remembers over coffee at the Groucho Club in London. “I came across this photo again fairly recently. It was one of the first photos I ever took.”

Kelly has been doing a fair bit of reminiscing recently in preparation for his first solo show, on view at Photo London at Somerset House. The exhibition, called ‘Night Light’, is curated by Guerin Projects founder Marie Claudine Llamas and features 30 previously unseen photos carefully selected from thousands of party photos Kelly took over the 2010s. The theme of the show is hedonism, which is obvious at first glance. The photos, which are all in black and white, capture human intersections of all kinds, and at all angles. In one, legs belonging to two different people slant wildly in the air. Another young partygoer does the splits, her face upturned in ecstasy. Two young men with curly hair kiss passionately, the respective vertical and horizontal stripes on their shirts meeting perpendicularly. Someone lights their cigar with a taper candle. A groom is seen flipping his bride 360 degrees on the dancefloor. It’s not immediately clear whether the backgrounds in these photos are floors, ceilings or walls. Shiny streamers are everywhere.

“What I love about a lot of these photos are all the people you see holding glasses – no matter what they’re doing, somehow they always make sure that they never spill their drink,” he observes.

Kelly is one of London’s best-known and most ubiquitous nightlife and portrait photographers. His sleek black-and-white party photos often feature the most in-demand and deliciously-dressed celebrities as they swan around awards shows, fashion week events, galas, product launches and afterparties. He’s worked for a slew of premium commercial clients and fashion magazines. But the photos in his first show will be “probably a bit too unsafe” for his corporate clients. They feel timeless, in the way that photos of the young and carefree often do. Despite being taken during a ten-year period that has felt increasingly grim across the globe, Kelly’s photos are a reminder to keep faith in the powers of serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine. “I’m very optimistic about most things in life,” he says. “I’m a glass half-full kind of person.”

Kelly grew up on the coast of Bridlington, East Yorkshire, and received his first camera from his grandfather, a Pentax K1000. Later, he’d go on road trips across America with his father during summer holidays and document the journey on digital cameras like the Sony Cybershot. His first job out of Birmingham University was as a visual effects photographer for films like Sweeney Todd, X Men: Days of Future Past, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Guardians of the Galaxy. He explains the job like this: “When I started doing it, it wasn’t even an accredited job. I think only one person had been credited as a visual effects photographer for a movie before, and that was on Fight Club. [For Sweeney Todd], I would walk around all of the really old streets of London and photograph the buildings that they would recreate digitally in a 3D model, it was very new technology at the time. It was an amazing job – I travelled all over the world doing that.”

After befriending Faris Badwan of The Horrors, Kelly began taking photos of an exclusive club night that Badwan started at Bungalow 8 called Marriage. Kelly had never taken party photos before and didn’t even have a flash that would sync properly to his camera. “I used to shoot on a one-second exposure, and then meter the flash so it would be appropriate for the exposure time,” he recalls. “You’d get all these waving streaks of light that would make the party feel very cool and chaotic.”

People loved the photos, and Kelly was asked to do the job again, then again and again. His preference for black-and-white photography began as a matter of convenience. “It’s much easier to develop black and white photos in your bathroom at home, and the film is cheaper. It also looks more timeless and takes away all the unpleasant tones. But it also makes you focus more on the action of the moment. Now if I’m shooting digitally, I keep the preview setting on black and white, even if the photos are going to be published in colour.”

At his party shoots, Kelly is not purely dictated by visuals; he works by following his other senses, especially sound. “I don’t walk around looking for pictures,” he says. “If we were in this room now and someone smashed a glass over at the bar, that would be a sign to me to go to that side of the room. I’m always following cues, like if someone has a very specific laugh in the corner or something. It feels almost psychic sometimes. For about an hour after I leave a party, I’m still seeing pictures everywhere.”

It’s somehow not a surprise to learn that Kelly considers himself shy, and views his camera as a powerful means of bridging communication with people on his terms. “I like to get to the party as early as possible so that I become a familiar part of the surroundings,” he says. “You become part of the furniture – the camera is like a cloak of invisibility that you wrap around yourself. I’ve been sober for a few years, and before I was worried that it would be difficult to take pictures if I stopped drinking. But the camera is enough. I go through a roller coaster of emotions after chasing all these energies across the room, and in the end, I feel like I’m the one who had the best night.”