Charlie Dane is fourteen years old. She is also an extremely talented pop singer songwriter and I have little doubt that with the right team around her, she could well be a superstar before she turns twenty. Which is why I made her the winner of the Reverbnation Photo Competition I ran a while ago.
Over 400 submissions came in to the competition from the New York area and because I was diligent in my approach by listening to all the songs and checking video’s and pictures, it took me over two weeks to listen to them all. By the end of it I was exhausted and seriously questioning my sanity in running the competition in the first place.
One of the things I discovered is there is an extraordinary amount of talent out there but at the end of the day, I chose Charlie as the winner because she struck me as having the best chance of rising above the mad scrabble that is now the music industry.
I first met with Charlie and her mother, Patti, a few weeks after the end of the competition and then watched Charlie do a show down at South Street Seaport. My initial impression was reinforced by the confidence with which she carried herself onstage and I walked away even more convinced I’d been right in choosing her as the winner.
For one reason or another it took longer than planned for us to do the photoshoot she’d won, but we finally got together a few weeks ago and these images are the results of that shoot. I wanted to do something a little more unusual with Charlie which is why the top half of her face was covered in rose petals and she was also wrapped in Christmas lights. Even though these were my original ideas I have to give props to Adriana Misoul for doing an amazing job on the make up (especially the flowers) and thanks to Adam Axel for letting me use his very cool studio on Broadway.
So you can all get a better idea of the kind of pop gems she creates, I’ve added a great video Charlie shot when she was thirteen at the end of my pictures.
Remember the name Charlie Dane, as I’m sure this is not the last time you will be hearing it.