Danny Lairon started out documenting street scenes and festivals in Mexico before moving into fashion photography, and the eye he built shooting unscripted public life carried straight over — his current work centers on sustainable and upcycled fashion, shot for Latin American and eco-conscious designers rather than mainstream commercial clients.
His most visible collaboration has been with San Francisco-based designer Joanna Jia, whose pieces are built from discarded fabric reworked into luxury garments. Lairon documented Jia's “Water of Life” collection, an organic-and-recycled-material line inspired by ocean conservation that debuted at the Aquarium of the Bay — a launch venue that made the collection's premise part of the shoot itself rather than just backdrop.
What he's chasing, by his own account, isn't just a good image. “Access to pretty pictures is at an all-time high,” he says. “Story and substance are harder to find.” He credits travel with sharpening that instinct — “the most beautiful things are unscripted moments,” he says — and argues that photographing a garment built from waste changes what the photograph is actually documenting: “When you document something reimagined from waste, it elevates the work.” He is currently shooting a sustainable luxury project in Tulum, Mexico, alongside continued work with Latin American designers at New York Fashion Week.
