pop-up video

Alfredo Flores is always moving, but you wouldn’t know it from the precise stills he takes of Sabrina Carpenter emerging onstage, her cheekiness and sparkly go-go boots shining through his images.

The portfolio of 36-year-old Flores, Carpenter’s tour photographer, is already familiar to most. Those photos of Carpenter posed with the tour stop’s city labeled on a mug and sealed with a kiss — that’s Flores’ work.

He has captured Carpenter’s rise from her “Emails I Can’t Send” era to the dazzlingly successful Short n’ Sweet tour, the work from which earned Flores the iHeart Radio Award for favorite tour photographer and puts him back on the road next week for an additional North American leg, including her six-night run at Crypto.com Arena next week.

But Carpenter’s towel reveals, set changes and winks won’t look exactly the same.

“Creatively, I just try my best to figure out different ways to shoot the same show,” said Flores, fresh off VMAs adrenaline and the release buzz of Carpenter’s latest album, “Man’s Best Friend.”

He constantly alters angles and lenses, including long, short and fish-eye, all with his Canon — the camera brand he’s been loyal to his entire career. However, that doesn’t make his first forays into photography any less impactful.

Alfredo Flores smiling with Sabrina Carpenter.

(Courtesy of Alfredo Flores)

Flores’ trajectory as a live music photographer is informed by the era he grew up in, one of disposable cameras, 24-hour photo labs, VHS camcorders, photo books full of family vacation pictures and the visionaries behind the hits that made us press the replay button on CD players.

He recalls his path was charted before him one afternoon in his native Belleview, N.J., on a sick day home from school in the form of the VH1 show “Pop-Up Video,” which featured music videos accompanied by trivia-filled text bubbles.

“It was Mariah Carey’s music video for ‘Honey,’ and it said, ‘This video is directed by Paul Hunter. The location is Puerto Rico. This is an extra. This is a body double,’ ” said Flores, who added, “And it clicked in my brain, ‘Oh, this is something that people create’ … and that’s where my interest really peaked in a more professional way.”

In 2008, when the ultimate music video platform was no longer VH1, but YouTube, Flores moved to Los Angeles and sought out the minds who inspired him — the directors and producers who shaped his camcorder and disposable days, before he ever strapped a Canon around his neck.

“I went to the [Geffen Records] offices every day until I got a yes,” said Flores.

He spent his initial internship days showcasing his perceptive eye by compiling magazine photos for music video storyboards. It was this eye that quickly put Flores on set, shooting bonus footage for a 2009 Nickelodeon production, “School Gyrls.” The made-for-TV movie featured a certain Canadian teen who benefited from the YouTube boom.

The Justin Bieber cameo would develop into a working relationship, allowing Flores to pursue the art form that prompted his move to Los Angeles: directing music videos.

Flores’s music video for Bieber’s song “Love Me” encapsulates the early stages of Bieber’s career. Flores intercut Bieber singing to the camera with footage of fans, behind-the-scenes chats with Usher and numerous angles of Bieber’s signature look — the swoop that inspired hair flips round the world.

Years later, in 2020, when the world stopped, Flores didn’t. He co-directed Bieber once again for the “Stuck with U” music video, a montage of loved ones dancing and embracing in their homes. It was 4 minutes and 17 seconds of celebrated togetherness in the midst of government-enforced close proximity. The song is a duet between Bieber and Ariana Grande, an artist whom Flores defines as a “once-in-a-lifetime kind of talent.”

Flores spent much of the 2010s working with Grande, all angles taken into consideration. From her upside-down album cover for “Thank U, Next” to co-directing her more festive side for the “Santa Tell Me” video to incorporating nostalgia into a Grande-Victoria Monét collaboration, “Monopoly.” Co-directing the friendship anthem’s music video, Flores nodded to a ‘90s upbringing by using a decent amount of camcorder footage.

“Joan [Grande’s mom] probably has so many VHS videos of Ari growing up. And Beth [Carpenter’s mom] has so many VHS recordings of Sabrina,” he said.

The artistic journeys of Carpenter, Grande and Flores are intertwined with the sought-after music video director Dave Meyers. The Grammy winner has bestowed the world with distinct visuals, such as Kendrick Lamar re-creating “The Last Supper” while rapping “HUMBLE.,” Britney Spears accepting an acting award in the midst of belting out “Lucky,” and Grande as an ethereal being singing “God Is a Woman.”

Meyers directed two music videos for Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” album with Flores as the behind-the-scenes photographer. Both videos helped facilitate Carpenter’s catapult into the cultural lexicon with the summer-infused shots in “Espresso” and the “Death Becomes Her” story line in “Taste.”

Alfredo Flores in the photo pit for Sabrina Carpenter.

(Courtesy of Alfredo Flores)

“BTS for me in the hands of Alfredo feels like a living yearbook of the experience we all had. I’m so deep in the creative process that I’m not self-aware of what’s happening, and to re-watch through his work allows me to enjoy the stories being told all around us. The capturing of the actual process, the passion we all share to create — those are the stories he captures over and over,” said Meyers.

Often, Flores takes those candid moments even further with a Polaroid camera — he points, shoots and hopes for the best. The instant photo is at the mercy of light and luck, which are part of the magic, he said.

“It’s the color, the grain, the imperfection of it all,” he said.

By definition, pop music is inextricably tied to its time period, the subject matter and sound speaking to its modern, often younger audiences. This can denote a fleeting quality, a trend to pass us by, not unlike the evolution of photography and videography.

However, the artists of today suggest otherwise. Carpenter covered Abba’s hit “Mamma Mia.” Grande sampled ‘N Sync in her “Thank U, Next” album. Both MTV and VH1 still have something to teach the music video directors of today. There’s lasting power in pop songs as are the mediums we associate with them. Who are we creatively if not an amalgamation of all we’ve seen, the people we know, the ways in which we originally consumed them?

“When I work with an artist we have longevity,” said Flores.

Not a surprising sentiment from the man taking a backstage Polaroid picture of a Gen Z pop star who praises disco.