[title subtitle=”words: Marla Cantrell images: Courtesy Tyler Mazaheri”][/title]
Tyler Mazaheri likes math, because of its predictable ways, because of its orderliness. It is not as if there are two right answers, or answers that are only partially right, and those absolutes provide a sort of comfort in a world where there are a lot of in-between places. As Tyler admits his affinity for arithmetic, he does it in an almost apologetic way. As an artist, he wonders if those two things could possibly work in harmony.
Already, at fifteen, he’s spent a good deal of time imagining how his life will play out. If he had to choose a career right now, it would be in the medical field. If he had to choose an artistic discipline, it would be photography. He talks about this juxtaposition while sitting inside a Fort Smith, Arkansas coffee shop, shortly after school on a day so cold his cheeks stay red for several minutes after he’s come inside. He slips off his North Face jacket, he taps his fingers on the small table, he taps the screen on his smartphone and dozens of his photographs come up.
The images are captivating. There’s a girl wearing a crown of flowers, the light shining on her shoulder, her eyes mesmerizing. Another girl, wearing her mother’s fur coat, is outlined in icicles, surrounded by snow. There’s something about the fur that makes the photo have the feel of the wilderness about it. Tyler remembers the day well. It was last winter, yet another day when the weather shut down school. Tyler and his friend trekked across her backyard. He shot the photo through an icicle. The effect softens the photo, making it look other-worldly.
The models are friends of his, many fellow students at Southside High School where Tyler is a sophomore. He likes that his friends are so willing to be photographed. There was a time not so long ago when he used smoke bombs during the shoots, setting them off, jumping back behind his camera, watching the plumes rise as he snapped away. “I’m glad my smoke bomb phase is over,” he says, and then laughs. “It was kind of trendy.”
If you want to know what the current trends are, ask Tyler. He spends a great deal of time on Instagram, posting his photos, voraciously scanning photos of fellow photographers. He learns by taking in all this information, by seeing what others do. A lot of what he studies is what he calls “bohemian fashion photography,” and you can see that in the way his models pose, or the way they look: sometimes broody, often unsmiling, a little aloof. All of that is by design, directed by Tyler who says he doesn’t give direction very well. Instead, he’ll tilt the models’ heads for them, or turn their shoulders to get the right angle. “If I look for anything in a model, it’s an edginess I can’t really describe,” Tyler says. “I think there’s something beautiful about everybody, but I really look for a unique, different look. I have a friend with this awesome red hair, and I love shooting with her. It’s things like that that catch my attention.”
It might be important to note that Tyler has only had one photography class, and at the time, so new to the complexities of cameras, he found himself lost. “They’d talk about apertures and I didn’t know what they meant,” he says. Feeling he was in over his head, he decided to teach himself.
He found that if he followed renowned photographers he admired, like Tyson French and Jorden Keith, his own work improved. He found tutorials online, and he experimented. He was surprised when his own photographs gained so much attention. His Instagram following soared to 12,000 people across the globe who were stunned by how much talent Tyler has.
At school, word spread. He started getting offers to take senior photos. He said yes to a few. Right now, he’s working on locations and filing away ideas for when the weather warms a bit. Until now, his work has been about photos that please him, and now he’s having to consider what his clients want, and what will stand the test of time. The thought of these milestone photos has caused him a few nights of unrest. Additionally, his sister, seven years his senior, is getting married and Tyler is doing her engagement photos. “I want it to be perfect for her, so I’ve been stressing out a little bit about it.”
Surely, the photos will be lovely. Tyler, who’s eternally critical, rarely loves his own work, or loves it initially and then finds fault later. He does, however, understand that he has a gift, and he credits those closest to him for supporting it. In kindergarten he’d already stopped playing with toys, and he had stopped napping, so during naptime his teacher let him sit at a nearby table, coloring with fat Crayons. During his fourth, fifth and sixth grades at Euper Lane Elementary, he took art classes and drew cartoon characters. From there, he began learning Photoshop, a computer program that allowed him to take old black-and-white images and add elements that turned them into art pieces. His work was so good he was offered a spot in a gallery that was opening in New York. “I was in the eighth grade, so it was just crazy to me. I think they figured out that it wasn’t going to be that easy, since I was so young, so it didn’t happen, but I’ll not forget it.”
After that, his concentration turned to photography. Much of his genius comes from his talent behind the camera. But some of the magic happens in the editing process, where he can add elements – like flowers – and do color adjustments and tweak the lighting.
Tyler touches the collar of his plaid shirt, touches his dark hair, smiles. He wants to talk again about the photo he took of his friend on the snowy day last year. “That was just before I got my new camera (a Canon). I would give anything to go back and get to do that day over. I would do it differently, and there were so many pictures I just had to scratch. But the day was perfect. The fur coat added so much detail, the contrast between that and the snow. We were in a yard that’s close to the river, so you could see all the water, and icicles were everywhere.”
That perfect day is one of his favorite memories. As for where all this will take him, Tyler’s not really sure. He smiles again. There’s always his excellent math skills as a back-up, his plans to enter the medical field. His photography will evolve the way it’s supposed to, Tyler says. The one thing he’s sure of is that he wants his name to mean something. Long after he’s gone, he wants people to remember him. That recognition could come from these images he’s gathering now, these ethereal photos of close friends who are young and beautiful and look at the camera as if they could rule the world, as if Tyler understands that they could, and only he can capture all the fearless promise that’s within each of them.
