21 Dec 2023/6 min/Guido Disalle
MLow X Guido Disalle
Photographer Guido Disalle on 22 years of hairdressing, the flash as truth, the 33 ETH Poolside sale, and why artists should stop taking orders from collectors.
Recorded November 21, 2023 as a full Google Meet behind a six minute published clip, this conversation traces an unusual road into photography. Disalle cut hair for 22 years, working editorial shoots and fashion shows where he watched the photographers, having grown up in the 80s on his older sisters' fashion magazines and the golden era of Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, Terry Richardson and Ellen von Unwerth. His father's death in late 2019 and the pandemic pushed him to quit the salon, care for his mother, and bet everything on his art; broke at 41 and googling how to sell his childhood hockey card collection, he stumbled onto an article about NFTs in January 2021.
The middle is craft. His signature full frontal flash has two roots: bright light as truth, nothing hidden from the viewer, and the wind up flash cameras of his youth, echoed in his tagline about taking the photographs you could have taken but didn't. Hairdressing taught him the rapport that he calls the non fungible part of shooting people, the reason AI photography does not threaten him. He walks through both of his working modes: the heavily produced 88 Miles Per Hour shoot in SoHo with a DeLorean and an illegally blocked cobblestone street, where the 1/1 turned out to be an unplanned second to last frame, and Postcard from Omaha, born from a phone snap of his girlfriend in ambient red light.
The final third is the episode's fire. He tells the story of Poolside selling for 33 ETH to a collector who messaged, I want to make history, after months of public trolling, and of Better Off Anon, the 33 look collection shot mostly blind in two hours on a broken viewfinder. Then he delivers the sharpest anti financialization argument in the archive: royalty removal diluted the culture, most advice on Twitter serves collectors' bags rather than artists, and many self declared art collectors are commodity collectors. His closing advice: be true to yourself and move with intention.
What this episode teaches
- Ground your signature in meaning
Disalle's bright flash is not an aesthetic tic: he equates bright light with truth, blasting the subject so nothing is hidden, layered with the nostalgia of 90s wind up flash cameras. A signature style survives because it means something.
- Rapport is the non fungible part
The set, the lights and the concept are all for nothing if you cannot build rapport with a subject. That skill, learned through three hour color services in the salon, is why he says AI photography does not threaten him.
- Shoot past the wrap
The 1/1 of 88 Miles Per Hour was the second to last frame, an unplanned portrait taken after the shoot ended, when the model was tired. Both signature pieces described here came from moments outside the plan, and he knew each keeper in camera, without a monitor.
- Hold your price
He publicly priced Poolside at 33 ETH when his highest sale was around 1.5 ETH and absorbed months of trolling. The collector who finally paid it made his career overnight; caving early would have made the sale, and the moment, impossible.
- Ignore the pandering advice
Entering in 2021 he was told photography would never sell, that work had to be animated or glitched. He minted photographs of people anyway and argues that creating what you know will sell turns the work into a commodity.
- Name the commodity honestly
His test: collectors who claim to walk their own beat but all buy the same Fidenza are commodity collectors, not art collectors. He does not begrudge the trade, he objects to the disingenuous here for the art framing.
- Royalties funded generosity
His editions collection effectively gave collectors 79 free images because royalties carried the relationship. Removing royalties, he argues, diluted the culture and killed the incentive for artists to build collections like it.
- Move with intention
His deepest advice transcends art: be true to yourself and be intentional in everything, because when those line up, some version of success follows. The real money comes to those who remain true to their art form and act with integrity.
The conversation, topic by topic
Hairdresser for 22 years
Disalle came to photography through hair, working editorial and fashion shows and watching the photographers. Born in 1979 and raised on his sisters' fashion magazines, he absorbed the golden era of Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, Terry Richardson and Ellen von Unwerth, and credits a photographic memory with imprinting those images.
The pandemic pivot
His father died in late 2019, he moved home to care for his mother, and he could not in good conscience keep working in a salon during Covid. He quit hairdressing entirely, calling the pandemic an awful thing that was a blessing for him: the catalyst that made art his sole focus.
Why the bright flash
Two reasons for the full frontal flash style. First, bright light as truth: nothing hidden, no hidden context, everything there to be seen. Second, the playful one behind his tagline, taking the photographs you could have taken but didn't, echoing the blown out wind up film cameras everyone carried in the 90s.
Rapport as craft
Ninety nine percent of his salon clients were women, and that comfort became his artistic focus on women and the interpersonal skill his shoots run on: making a subject laugh, catching a candid, reading what people are going through. This, not the camera, is what he says AI cannot replicate.
Broke at 41: the hockey cards
After three or four catastrophic years he was broke, and went online to liquidate the sports card collection he had kept mint since the 80s. Googling how to sell collectibles surfaced an article about NFTs in late January 2021, and, as he puts it, the rest is history.
First mints were collages
He was also an abstract painter and a working collage artist, so his first two or three NFT sales were collages while everyone told him photography would never sell. He minted a photograph anyway, it sold for a little money, and he concluded there was something here.
Two creative modes
Some pieces are fully conceptualized, location, props, colors and flash angle planned for weeks; others are sporadic, sparked by how light rolls off a rib bone or collarbone of one of his muses in the house. He compares reading light off the body to how a painter reads brushstrokes.
88 Miles Per Hour
The planned mode at its most extreme: a Back to the Future DeLorean, a cobblestone SoHo street blocked off without permission, rain, hair and makeup, his signature glasses and bodysuit on the model Dana, roughly 300 frames. The 1/1 was the unplanned second to last shot at the back of the car, and he knew instantly.
Postcard from Omaha
The opposite origin: his girlfriend lit by an ambient red lamp mid conversation, a phone snap, and a shoot two days later. Released through AOTM, it was shot at about 1/1000 shutter, handheld, ambient light, wide open aperture and high ISO, all in service of how the shadows gradient across the body.
The meme card
Invited to make a card for the Memes collection when it held little photography, he built a concept around gold WAGMI balloons from an old prom themed magazine shoot, the Sicilian kisses tattooed bodysuit, and a wine bottle as a hat tip to OSF and Rektguy. He calls it a very underrated photo and currently affordable.
The Poolside night
He listed Poolside at 33 ETH when his highest sale was about 1.5 ETH and collected screenshots of the trolling. Then a low profile collector messaged, I want to make history, mint Poolside, and bought it that night. He woke his mother, who cried tears of joy, and they celebrated with tea. It took him, in his words, from obscurity to everyone knowing who he was.
Better Off Anon
His first photographic collection, a 33 look editorial story about anonymity and fashion meant to be viewed one through 33. It should never have existed: 33 looks in two hours, a model just recovering from Covid, a Sony mirrorless viewfinder that failed so 90 percent of frames were shot blind, and a finger sliced open on a porcelain tiger's chipped tooth. He calls it what he is most proud of in the space.
Against the financialization
He argues most Twitter advice is said to pump bags: the space has financialized art until it is about number up, number down. Royalty removal diluted the culture and killed collections like his royalty funded editions. Fidenzas are cool but became a commodity, and collectors who only buy them while claiming to be here for the art are, in his words, commodity collectors or traders.
Where photography goes
Editions trade more liquidly than 1/1s in a trader skewed market. NFTs give photography what physical prints never could, provable edition sizes, and he expects instantaneous on chain capture of raw unedited photographs to matter for documenting wars and news as AI fakery grows, a point MLow extends to archiving his own interviews on chain. Display technology, both agree, still lags.
In their words
“I always equated the bright light with truth. When I take a photograph and blast the subject with this light, there's nothing that's hidden.”
Guido Disalle“The thing that's non fungible is the rapport with the subject.”
Guido Disalle“You can plan all you want. At the end of the day, it's about getting the shot.”
Guido Disalle“He messaged me, he goes, hey, I want to make history. Mint Poolside. I want to buy it.”
Guido Disalle“Since when have artists been told what to do, how to do it, why to do it?”
Guido Disalle“Be true to yourself and be intentional.”
Guido DisalleCite this conversation
Guido Disalle in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Guido Disalle," The MLow Show, 21 Dec 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-12-21-mlow-x-guido-disalle.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.