Christian Patterson was born in 1972 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Selected as one of the 30 Emerging Photographers To Watch by Photo District News in 2004 and nominated by William Eggleston as "King of Photo" for Tokion Magazine (2006), Patterson's work has also been published by The New York Times, Res Magazine, HotShoe and While You Were Sleeping. His photographs are in the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art and The Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

While working as William Eggleston's assistant in Memphis, from 2002 through 2005, Patterson developed the suite of images he collectively titles "Sound Affects." Patterson explains of the work, "I spent three years exploring the city of Memphis, listening to its music and discovering its hidden places. The photographs in "Sund Affects" were made at barbecue joints, dive bars, liquor stores, parties, and everyday locations including laundromats, supermarkets, and my own home. The moments I captured are unmistakably musical. There is also a more elusive, underlying musicality that I found. These are the sound affects."