Austin, Texas-based freelance photographer Darren Carroll specializes in location portrait work. An action photographer by training, he has since shifted his sights to portraits, combining a keen interest in lighting and working with people with the lessons learned from years of experience with the ever-changing, unpredictable nature of photographing athletes and the games they play. His ability to adapt to fluid situations--whether they be unfamiliar locations, cantankerous subjects,  rapidly-changing conditions, or neurotic handlers and publicists (or most often, a combination thereof)--has earned him the confidence of editors at his two main editorial clients, Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest, for more than a decade.

Although just as comfortable shooting in a studio, most of his assignments make use of his preference to work on location with a small crew, with a minimal amount of fuss and and intrusiveness into his subjects' schedules and environments.  The ability to quickly evaluate a location, define the scene, and to light and shoot on the fly lends a sense of "organized reportage" to much of his lifestyle and action portrait work--a style that has been drawn upon by other clients, both commercially (Ford, JWT, Mizuno USA, Kolar Advertising, Baylor University) and editorially (Texas Highways, Time, People, Smart Money, and Texas Monthly magazines, to name a few), as well as by private individuals, design firms and custom publishing houses.

When not traveling on assignment he enjoys spending time visiting clients and friends in his native New York, and at his home just outside of Austin which he shares with his wife, Nell, his four-year old son, Jake, and a coterie of four-legged beasts--three horses, a couple of cats, and two dogs, Gatsby and Daisy. As for anything else, if you're interested, read on...

 

 

So...What Else Do You Want To Know?

 

Born in: New York

Lives in: Cedar Creek, Texas (a town about to be overrun as Austin sprawls eastward)
Personal stuff: Married to Nell. Four-year old son, Jake. Two dogs, Gatsby and Daisy. Three cats. Three horses. It's an interesting household.

Education: Eight years with the Jesuits, four of them getting a degree in Government from Georgetown University.

Hobbies: Trying to teach myself how to play a dobro without making the cats think I'm torturing one of their brethren

Addictions: Distance running

Extravagances: Single Malt Scotch

Heaven is... Either a starlit night on the beach at Coco Point, Barbuda in the West Indies or a Robert Earl Keen show at Gruene Hall with a bottomless cooler of Shiner Bock.
The jury's still out.


Hell is... Lubbock.*

 

On the night table: The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon), god is not Great (Christopher Hitchens), Everyday Drinking (Kingsley Amis), The Last Picture Show (Larry McMurtry)

 

On the iPod: The aforementioned Mr. Keen, Gillian Welch, Ray LaMontagne, James McMurtry, Patty Griffin, Bruce Springsteen, Terry Allen, The Connells, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, among others


Favorite books: This Side of Paradise (F.Scott Fitzgerald), The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Robert A. Caro), Green Eggs and Ham (Dr. Seuss)


Favorite movies: Being There, Casablanca, Bull Durham

Couldn't have said it better myself: "Whether your final destination is heaven or hell, first you have to change planes in Dallas/Fort Worth." -Kinky Friedman

 

 

*no deliberation necessary.