Young photographer moves on from Twilight

I heard this story on NPR yesterday - the photographer who created the movie poster for the original Twilight movie was 18 years old at the time!  His name, hilariously, is Joey Lawrence (not to be confused with the actor!), but he goes by Joey L. His latest project is photographing a vanishing tribe in Ethiopia. He's really impressive - he's done more in 20 years than most people do in their whole lives!

Here's an excerpt from the original story on the MTV website (from 2008) about the movie poster:

MTV: Before you were approached, were you aware of the "Twilight" phenomenon?

Lawrence: No, I didn't know much about the books. But when I told some friends of mine that this next assignment coming up was "Twilight," I had one girl who was like, "Oh my God! You've got to bring me! I love 'Twilight'! I love Edward! He's so hot!"

MTV: There are a lot of people who feel very passionately about this universe.

Lawrence: That's right. And you have to be careful when dealing with a movie like this, because if you make the fanbase mad, they're going to, like, trample you. [Laughs.]

MTV: Take us through your thought process as you were trying to design the first-ever poster for that fanbase.

Lawrence: Well, obviously the main thing for this poster was the interaction between Bella and Edward. Because in the movie, he's protective of her, he plays a more protective role, so that was why in the poster, you see he's kind of looming over and watching out for her. Also, she can't appear to be weak of character, and it can't look like a normal kind of love poster, because obviously he's a vampire. [I decided to] light it pretty dark as well, to match the mood of vampires.
MTV: Why do you think Catherine Hardwicke, or Summit [Entertainment, the production company behind "Twilight"], picked you over all the other people who do this for a living?

Lawrence: It was Summit. I think the reason why they chose me is because they have such a young cast, and they really wanted a young photographer as well. In my portfolio, I have one picture of a guy who's in a car; it's lit the exact way that they wanted [the poster]. So they saw that picture, and this [became] my first movie poster.

MTV: As you walk into movie lobbies and see your poster, or know that it's thumbtacked to the walls of a thousand teen bedrooms, how much of a dream come true will that be?

Lawrence: It's cool. I got to check out the set ... and they had it set up where it was that scene, I think it's the final scene of the movie, where they get to crash through the floorboards. I got to see the floorboards messed up. It was cool to visit the movie set and see how it all goes down.