Award-Winning Photographer Elevates Commercial Images to Fine Art

Dustin Edward Arnold moves fluidly between titles: designer, photographer, and creative director. At the center of his practice is an instinct to reshape how we perceive objects, images, and stories, elevating commercial work to fine art.

As Executive Creative Director at Revery, Arnold has carved a path where design and photography are not separate disciplines but stages of the same narrative.

“I came to photography through design,” he reflects.

Early work in the beauty and prestige industries taught him that luxury goods were often built as much for the imagination as for physical use. Designing packaging and products, he began to envision how they would photograph, how they might exist as totems rather than objects. For Arnold, photography became not documentation, but completion — the final act of realizing a narrative.

“The most powerful articulation of an object, subject, or idea was the mythology an image could make,” he says.

Industry Recognition

Arnold’s work has been featured globally in publications ranging from Time to I.D. and in institutions and festivals including D+D Design Directory and Art Basel. Throughout his career, he has garnered over forty international awards. He was named one of fifty winners of the prestigious ADC Young Guns 5 award, honoring the next generation of creative talent in visual media and design.

In 2008, he received the Young Alumni Innovator award from Art Center College of Design for his unorthodox approach to image-making and brand building, and that same year, he was selected as one of Print Magazine’s Top New Visual Artists. Two years later, Computer Arts UK spotlighted him in “The 10 Best Designers You Don’t Know About (Yet).”

Revery: A Studio with Purpose

Dustin Edward Arnold’s creative home is Revery, a multidisciplinary studio with roots in Portland, Los Angeles, and New York. The team partners with brands and artists worldwide, guided by a mission to protect and nurture the stories that define shared humanity. At its core, Revery works to ignite recognition, belonging, and love, values embedded into every collaboration.

That ethos is more than a manifesto; it is a practice. Love is treated as an active discipline, community-building is seen as a responsibility, and uplifting voices through mentorship, funding, and creative support is integral to the studio’s DNA. Sustainability is also central. From hiring locally to participating in industry initiatives like Green the Bid, Revery is committed to advancing creative work toward more ethical and people-centered practices.

“People above all else” is a value Arnold and his team hold closely. Projects are built on inclusivity and belonging, ensuring that many voices and perspectives shape the stories they tell. In Arnold’s words, cultivating difference is the only way to create work that truly reflects the world we live in and aspire to.

A Multidisciplinary Lens

Arnold’s photographs rarely stand alone. They are born from a larger system: sculpture, set design, fabrication, and material experimentation.

“I care a lot about what I put in front of the camera,” he explains.

Sometimes he fabricates materials himself. At other times, he collaborates with artisans to bring tactile visions to life. He describes his photography as physical, rooted in surfaces, textures, and the poetics of matter.

That attention to craft carries through to process. Each project begins in his phone’s Notes app, crystallized into a pre-production book with thesis, storyboards, and mood. Sets are built, lights are tested, materials are sourced, and most importantly, his detailed preparation coexists with a willingness to let the work surprise him.

“What I photograph dictates how I photograph,” Arnold says.

The Tension Between Vision and Flexibility

Precision, however, can bring its own challenges. He recalls photographing Dita Von Teese for an eyewear campaign, an ambitious concept that demanded mid-shoot adjustments. The pivot was difficult, but it reinforced a lesson: flexibility is as creative as planning.

“Even with a great team, it became obvious I wasn’t going to be able to pull off the entire vision as planned,” he admits. “Sometimes the best outcome is not from forcing the vision, but from listening when the work starts talking back.”

Collaboration, Decay, and Mythmaking

Among his most formative projects is Putesco (2009), Latin for “to rot” or “to decay,” created with collaborator Nick Cope. What began as documentation of sculptural works stitched from rotting cloth evolved into a body of images that merged decay with classical aesthetics. The pair used the very materials of the sculptures as photographic backdrops, letting them dictate the mood and presence of the work.

“That one gesture opened a portal,” Arnold says.

The project shaped his philosophy of letting materials guide narratives, a principle that continues to inform his practice.

Tools That Reflect the Work

Though he downplays the centrality of gear, Arnold admits his toolkit mirrors his approach: deliberate, even impractical. He shoots with a Phase One IQ3 100MP and vintage Broncolor Grafit A4 strobes, equipment that is as exacting as it is cumbersome.

“It’s unwieldy, expensive, and impractical, a perfect reflection of my image-making approach,” he jokes.

Looking Beyond Photography

What excites Arnold most is what lies beyond the boundaries of photography as we know it. He cites Nick Knight’s assertion that the medium has already outgrown its name. Arnold shares this belief, seeing his own practice less as photography and more as a dialogue between artifacts, disciplines, and technologies. He is exploring projects where a still image can seed soundscapes, interactive forms, or spatial installations.

“I’m drawn to processes where a photograph becomes something else entirely: where a still image generates a soundscape in TouchDesigner, or where a portrait translates into an interactive form. I’m exploring how photographs can be used as seeds and can propagate their meaning, story, and character into other mediums—3D, spatial audio, film — each one like a memory: an echo or mutation of the original,” he says.

“It’s less photography, and more of a conversation between artifacts, each imbued with their own context and meaning.”

At its heart, Arnold’s work has always been about perception rather than capture, mythology rather than fact. Whether through rotting cloth, sculptural sets, or cutting-edge media, he builds images that complete realities instead of recording them. His photographs linger because they are not just images, but echoes that extend into memory, myth, and the imagination.

Image credits: Dustin Edward Arnold, Revery