Commercial Art: Hatnim Lee

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RAISED IN FAIRFAX, VA., AND TRAINED AT THE COROCRAN SCHOOL OF ART, Hatnim Lee is one of the area's busiest and most distinctive artists. She's since decamped to the wilds of Brooklyn but is returning to D.C. to give a talk at Transformer Gallery, where a selection of her color-saturated, visually witty, deeply mysterious photographs are on view. Lee is as adept at catching moments of wonder in a street scene and poignancy in a still life as she is at transmitting the hotness of a professional model or the coolness of an indie band. She'll discuss her ongoing photographic blog and her new book, "Hatnim Lee Photographs."

» EXPRESS: Do you consider yourself an artist or a commercial photographer?
» LEE: Both. I go in with the same motive, which is just to create work that I feel is most sincere and genuine, stylistically.

» EXPRESS: Well, you don't pose a band up against a brick wall or anything -- your commercial work has the soul of an artist.
» LEE: A photo editor is gonna take whatever images or film they want, but if I can get something out of it for my portfolio, then I'm happy.

» EXPRESS: How did you decide which images to use at Transformer?
» LEE: Victoria [Reis], who is the gallery owner, she and I decided to go with these very large prints and some small ones. Hopefully, you would look at it and think, "OK, this is one photographer on different subjects." It was just kind of interesting to see different subject matter next to each other evoking the same mood.

» EXPRESS: What's your aesthetic that creates this through-line?
» LEE: I think a lot of the way I see photography and the way I studied it was definitely part of the schooling of the "decisive moment." That's the reason why I always have my camera with me, because you never know what's going to happen around you.

» EXPRESS: Compared to something like painting, in which a painter chooses every detail, photography is a bit more random of an art form. How do you control it?
» LEE: Yeah, I think you do have control over what you're doing and how you can -- I don't know if it would be the right word, but manipulate -- how you can draw whatever out of your subjects. It's like solving a puzzle.

» EXPRESS: What's the hardest kind of shoot?
» LEE: I would actually say the answer would be when a situation's so hard that I end up not taking the picture, you know? If the moment doesn't come and it can be great, wonderful, I'm so in awe, I don't pick up the camera, because I want to keep it in my mind. When I'm traveling, I don't take many pictures.

» Transformer Gallery, 1404 P St. NW; through April 26; artist's talk Sat., 2 p.m., free; 202-483-1102.

Photo courtesy Hatnim Lee