THE HOURGLASS

After finishing art school, Adrian Gaut moved to New York from his hometown of Portland, Oregon, to pursue a career in photography. Specifically, he moved for a job assisting David LaChapelle, whose colorful work has been described as “kitsch pop surrealism.” Gaut arrived in the city on September 4, 2001. “So, obviously, what happened a week later, to the day, colored my whole experience of the city,” he said. “My first six months were spent working for David LaChapelle and living through the aftermath of 9/11.”

Gaut stayed in New York and, in the decade-plus since, has become a highly sought-after photographer in his own right, balancing commercial work for major brands with editorial work. Gaut’s photographs of landscapes, architecture and interiors in particular have graced the pages of Architectural Digest, Art in America, New York Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and many other magazines. Drawing early inspiration from the work of Andreas Gursky and Bernd Becher of the German School, Gaut has also continued to make fine-art photography on his own time.

For Whisper Editions, Gaut has dipped into his rich and lesser known archive of fine-art work and made available an exclusive print of a stunning photograph taken on Secret Beach in Kauai. Gaut traveled to Kauai expressly to shoot landscapes and was especially taken with the spot. “It’s a very hard beach to get to,” he says. “It’s down a ravine. You have to time your moves with the waves and scramble down some rocks.” Getting the two-minute exposure, of water flowing over rocks, required risk, as giant swells can come in out of nowhere at any time. “I found a place and set up my tripod and hoped for the best.”

Shop Gaut's edition for Whisper here.