Preston Chaplin — no relation to Charlie — was born in Charleston, South Carolina, where the traditions of the South laid fertile soil for a passion for image making. That passion led him to study fine art and commercial photography, and then into the commercial photography world: seven years assisting, digital teching, and retouching for established photographers. His broad understanding of digital imaging turned out to be the asset everyone wanted, and it led to a career as a digital artist.

Today Preston runs Mode Imaging, a New York digital imaging studio for high-end retouching and AI imaging. Over 28 years that work has included every in-house Google Super Bowl spot since 2019 and campaigns for YouTube, BMW, Victoria’s Secret, Emerson Collective, and Broadway — compositing, beauty, and campaign retouching for print, digital, and broadcast, and more recently generative AI concepts carried through to finished, print-ready art.

He photographs people, fashion, and fine art, and lives in New York with his wife and two daughters.