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May
08
Author James Scott asked me to take his portrait for his newest book and lecture tour. He had been resistant to have his photo taken because he didn’t want the image to reinforce any stereotypes as a Financial Consultant. He came to the table with an awesome character portrait concept – to be seated at a messy desk, decanter (from Scotland) and puffing on a cigar. He said so much of his job was about thinking, sorting out – a financial detective of sorts, before he gets down to writing. He brought several perfect props for the shoot and we had built the set prior to the photo day – just to make sure we both liked everything.
We chatted a lot – about all sort of subjects, and had just finished talking about spirit, and how some cultures have a heightened sense of intuition and knew when someone was coming home – since their spirit would arrive before them. The next shot we took there appeared to be wolf in the puff of cigar smoke next to James’ face – yikes.
He paid me one of the highest compliments about my photography work, that it was honest. He had looked at several photographers’ web site and settled on me – primarily because of the series of Artists’ portraits. Photo shoots like this make me love my job even more.
James Scott is the CEO of Princeton Corporate Solutions, “5 Time Best Selling Author” and lecturer on the topics of IPO facilitation, corporate structuring, Private Placement Memorandum authoring and Mergers and Acquisitions strategies. Here is a link to his books on Amazon.
Apr
16
Here is a compilation of a few photo sessions from the last few months. I can’t help myself but to shoot in black and white. Why are we drawn to black and white portraits ? Is it the graphic quality that helps us concentrate on form, or an evenness of tone, without the distraction of color. From a technical stand point I’m learning to really see tone – I can set my digital camera to capture in black and white, but the color info is retained. Staying within the black and white tone range affords me the opportunity to work with subtle alterations of light – and really work with the effects of lighting.The right lighting is the key, and to be able to control the light as much as possible creates satisfying results.
All the images in the slide show were taken in studio with a variety of lighting types. Lately, I’ve been rather fond of this ring flash and bouncing the light into a big reflector – or positioning the subject with the available light and adding a soft light on one side. Thanks again to Dwayne and Molly for styling during several of these sessions.
