USD Magazine Spring 2020

person. The book is beautiful. There are a lot of great photog- raphers, but Justin shows up as authentically himself, authenti- cally curious, authentically engaged. The relationships he’s able to develop have delivered a career where that’s appreciated.” aculty Department — Vol. 2 was released in October 2019. And, again, Chung’s relation- ship with del Río played a part. “For this next one, I really wanted it to be more personal, F

sheet with me, in hand, and it turned out that del Río was at a conference there and was staying in the same hotel I was. It was ex- citing because he was the first per- son to see what the pages actually looked like,” Chung says. “He was able to see the whole thing come full circle from the concept to the printing to the finished product.” “We had breakfast and he showed me the proofs,” del Río recalls. “I was looking at the way that the images were com- ing together and I thought his photos matched who he is as a

own faculty, a faculty of thought.” It was an ultimate aha moment for the photographer. Chung’s coffee table book, Faculty Department , was self- published in 2014 with a small run of 3,000 copies. “It was published just about a year and a half after we’d talk- ed about it,” del Río recalls. In a quirky twist of fate, Chung was returning from a press check for the book from the printer in Iceland and had a job in Los Angeles afterward. “I flew to L.A. with the press

But del Río had continued to follow Chung on social media and got in touch. “He messaged me, and said, ‘I can’t believe you’re shooting for J. Crew, this is incredible.’” The two got on the phone and Chung mentioned an idea he was interested in. “When we talked about how much this documentary essay meant to me, he said it made him think that, in a way, I was still learning from these people. As if the world was my school and I was enlisting my

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