He still dreams of photographing Steve Buscemi ("He has such an interesting look and
intensity") and Jason Schwartzman ("I'm a huge Wes Anderson fan"), but so far Peter Ash
Lee is pretty happy with the portfolio he's assembled as creative director of Corduroy
magazine. That's because the 26-year-old Canadian living in Brooklyn finds himself far-
removed from the drudgery of corporate life his double major in business and psychology
foretold. Now Lee's pursuing a B.F.A. in photography at the School of Visual Arts and
setting up photo shoots for the relatively new quarterly that's all about being comfortable,
simple and stylish. The secret to those three ingredients, Lee will tell you, involve
following your passion - even if it means another four years in school - and plenty of
white shirts.

What have you been up to over the past couple weeks?
While we were in L.A., we shot Tony Hale from "Arrested Development" so that was a lot
of fun. We also did Marie Digby, the girl from YouTube who sings the acoustic version of
"Umbrella." And yesterday I shot actor Sean Faris.
How do you make your subjects comfortable?
I don't come with a solid idea of how I want to shoot them. I explain I want to capture them
as naturally as possible. We'll pull some clothes from designers, but if they're not feeling it,
they'll just keep what they're wearing. All the subjects we've photographed totally don't
care about hair and makeup. They're usually pretty laidback.
What prompted you to study photography?
I went to Korea for a summer and my aunt got me this internship at Samsung working in
the human resources department, which had been the focus of my business major. After a
month of wearing a suit, I'm like, I really can't do this. I heard one of my cousins was a
photographer in Korea so I called him up to see if I could help out. I did that and loved it.
How did you get the middle name "Ash"? That was a name I gave myself in high school
because there were two other Peter Lees. "Ash" had a nice flow to it. But on documents, I
write "Peter Ash Min-soo Lee" so there isn't any confusion.
Corduroy's mantra is all about never going out of style. What's something you own that fits
the bill?
I'm a big fan of white T-shirts. I'm generally a T-shirt and jeans kind-of-guy. Oh, and I'm
really attached to white dress shirts.
- Corina Knoll