In 2006, while his high school classmates were busy with extracurricular activities like football, basketball and other sports “on old turf fields,” Blair Caldwell was hyper-focused on honing a new passion he discovered as a sophomore while waiting for a ride home from school.
Since his parents picked him up late due to their work commitments, Caldwell passed the time by arranging photo shoots with his older sister, who loved modeling. He captured his snaps on a Razr flip phone he borrowed from her sister.
“My sister and I would take that time after school to go to the library and print out all the photos I had taken of her,” the Tyler, Texas, native said. Fortune. “Eventually, instead of doing homework, we will email the photos to the library printers.”
It wasn’t long before the images caused a stir in the school. “My sister’s friends started noticing photos of her and asked who took them,” Caldwell recalls. “She told them it was me and from then on I started photographing everyone.”
Caldwell’s newfound popularity as a photographer motivated him to dream bigger.
“I would write it on my homework,” he said. “When I finished class early, I would turn the paper over and just draw Hollywood and cameras and all that stuff.”
Now 33, Caldwell has a successful career as one of Hollywood’s most accomplished photographers, photographing celebrities such as Grammy Award winners Beyoncé, Cardi B and SZA, as well as the likes of Kylie Jenner, Normani and Michael B. Jordan.
In an interview with Fortunethe photographer revealed how he went from juggling new jobs to photographing Hollywood’s biggest stars, and how he’s leveraging AI for his most recent work.
The art of opportunity
The path to success in Hollywood for Caldwell was not glamorous at first and began with just $1,000 in his bank account.
After graduating from the Art Institute of Dallas with a degree in photography, Caldwell packed his bags and moved more than 1,300 miles to Los Angeles, a city he had idolized as a child watching music videos on MTV and BET.
“My family was like, ‘okay, go, just make sure you have a plan,’” he said. “I literally had no plan…I hit the ground running.”
To make ends meet and find gigs, Caldwell took a series of odd jobs, such as auditioning for competing shows, including The X factor, The voiceAND American idolvolunteering as a live studio audience member and offering to take $50 headshots for people at a local park.
“I was doing everything I could to try to get my name out there and try to get in touch with someone who could help me get to the next place,” Caldwell said.
His connections have paid off. While sleeping on a mattress in a friend’s living room, Caldwell was awakened by an urgent phone call from his mentor in town, asking if he could do a photo shoot for R&B singer Chrisette Michele. Without any preparation or planning, Caldwell immediately grabbed his equipment and ran to meet the artist, who needed to document his Grammy nomination.
Caldwell said Michele “took me under her wing” and enlisted him to travel around the country with her, shoot album covers, maintain her YouTube vlog and capture images for her Instagram account.
Other stars have noticed. Cheerfulness actress Amber Riley and then-Fifth Harmony singer Normani asked Caldwell for their own shots.
“I remember [Normani] saying, ‘I want to hire you as my personal photographer,'” Caldwell said. “I finally felt like I was getting my foot in the door.”
Opportunity calls
As his resume grew, so did the amount of calls he received from eager clients, including the chance in 2018 to photograph one of music’s biggest titans. But it was an opportunity she almost turned down.
“One day I was sitting in church and I got a text: ‘Are you available to take photos?’” he recalled. “I’m like, ‘sure, who is this for?’”
His question remained unanswered and his friend responded by saying that their mysterious client could not be revealed.
“I thought, I have to go lead worship at six, so I need to know who it is because I can’t just leave the church,” he said. “At that time, I was literally begging God to give me a sign to show me something.”
Caldwell had convinced himself that he had reached the end of his career and that he would have to stop pursuing his dream to secure a traditional 9-to-5 job for stability. But he gave this mysterious opportunity a chance: He drove his car, a 2007 Toyota Scion that was “just spitting out cold air,” over the hills of Los Angeles to an undisclosed filming location.
When he arrived, he was greeted by a light blue Rolls-Royce in the driveway, as well as a security guard at the entrance who asked him to sign a document.
“I haven’t read it. I didn’t care,” Caldwell recalled. “I said, ‘I’m just happy to sign it.'”
As he went through security, he noticed a woman on a balcony. “She said, ‘How are you? I’m Beyoncé.'”
Over the course of the photo shoot, the two bonded over Caldwell’s accent and their shared Texas roots.
“I couldn’t believe it, everything I had prayed for had arrived,” Caldwell said. “That was the beginning of everything.”
Homecoming
Days after his first photoshoot with Beyoncé, Caldwell excitedly refreshed his Instagram feed, waiting to see the newly taken photos appear on his timeline. Eventually, a few days of anticipation turned into a month and the original “cloud nine” feeling started to fade.
“I thought he hated the pictures because I didn’t see them come out,” she said, recalling times when she couldn’t get out of bed until four in the afternoon due to depression.
But a month later, while sitting in the living room with friends, Caldwell received another vague text asking if he knew how to shoot live shows, a skill he had learned from working with his previous clients Chrisette Michelle and Amber Riley. He rushed to the scene and was greeted by dancers, bands, lighting crews and videographers preparing for one of Beyoncé’s biggest productions: her 2018 “Homecoming” performance at Coachella.
“It was just like a huge entertainment college,” Caldwell said. “I was just as bright as a kid the first day with my little bag.”
A tribute to black HBCU culture, the performance garnered 41 million viewers in 232 countries, breaking the record for the most-viewed performance at any festival.
Today, Caldwell is still the singer’s regular photographer: He also shot the cover of Beyoncé’s eighth studio album, Cowboy Carter, released Friday.
Photography with artificial intelligence
Capturing Beyoncé’s Coachella performance required Caldwell to present his vision to the team with moodboards well in advance of the performance, a strategy he had previously failed to follow. Years later, she has embraced the mood board strategy and is using a new tool to make them more effective: artificial intelligence.
Caldwell says tools like the Tome AI platform refine his workflows and reduce production time by planning shots in advance.
“When I discovered Tome, it was like I had an assistant helping me,” he said. “I inserted some images and Tome’s AI presented them in a visually compelling way that helped me not only crystallize my vision, but it actually became something I could share with clients.”
Even though he’s still tinkering with the technology, Caldwell says he can appreciate the versatility of AI.
“If I needed to find photos, I could just type in the type of photo I wanted and the AI would find the right image,” Caldwell said. “It’s literally a lifesaver… it’s made my job really easy.”
The AI tool helps Caldwell visualize the “mood, aesthetic, lighting, clothing, scenery, and photographic style” he’s aiming for in each shot.
“I like that it gives you perspective on what you might not have,” he said. “You can search for something in particular and an AI will give me an example of what I’m looking for, but it will show it to me in a different way.”
A 2023 Pew poll shows Americans are increasingly wary of the growing role of artificial intelligence in their lives and work, but Caldwell says he’s supportive of the technology and doesn’t believe AI will replace human photographers anytime soon .
“[Photography] it’s real, shooting someone is real,” Caldwell said. “Standing in front of someone is an experience.”